4th Edition D&D discussion thread

[Subotai]

Start saving your bucks

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/playdnd

[Perry Holley]

So is this leading to an announcement for 4th edition D&D, or something else that I'm not smart enough to figure out?

[Robotech Master]

The only thing I know of that's happening in 20 hours is Gencon, which is definitely related to tabletop gaming, but I'm not sure what 4Dventure is referring to.

[Perry Holley]

Well, if they are planning on doing 4e D&D, then Gencon would definately be the place for them to announce it.

[marionde]

Its been almost 100% confirmed to be 4E.

Here's a link to a screenie from WOTC's forums. Looks like they are getting ready for the post-annoucement rush.

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3702448&postcount=217

[Perry Holley]

Its been almost 100% confirmed to be 4E.

Here's a link to a screenie from WOTC's forums. Looks like they are getting ready for the post-annoucement rush.

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3702448&postcount=217Thanks for the link... and welcome to CBR!

[Jmacq1]

Heh, that's funny. They've been denying for months that 4th Edition was in the works. Or at least that it was going to arrive anytime soon.

[JeffreyWKramer]

After being a DnD player since back when it was a couple of softcover books, I gave up on purchasing any further DnD products when they jumped so quickly from 3 to 3.5 and started reprinting books they'd released only a year or so earlier. There are plenty of old versions of the game readily available now, all perfectly enjoyable, and I sincerely hope players stop buying these constant reboots. It serves only to rack in bucks for WotC, but is damaging to the RPG hobby.

[Kage Kisaragi]

if this is some kind of announcement for 4th edition you can count me out. I will not buy anymore DnD books ever.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Heh, that's funny. They've been denying for months that 4th Edition was in the works. Or at least that it was going to arrive anytime soon.

That one's right up there with "The check is in the mail" and "I promise, honey, I'll pull out on time."

[Jmacq1]

if this is some kind of announcement for 4th edition you can count me out. I will not buy anymore DnD books ever.

I dunno if I'd go that far, but I'll be curious to see how compatible the pile of 3.5 stuff I already have is with it.

For some reason, I'm betting that they're going to switch over to something that more closely resembles the D20 Modern system. That's the direction they went with the new Star Wars RPG that came out this year. And just like the Star Wars "revised" edition pointed towards some of the things they changed in 3.5, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the new "Saga" edition pointed towards what they want to do in 4th Edition.

[Kage Kisaragi]

But its all to much to soon. How long has 3.5 been out? I started playing in 2000 roughly, it can't be that long. Even if its some what compatible I find this kind of inconviencing. I mean for them to call it a new edition then it must be a massive overhaul to how the game is already played which will probably make most of the suppliments up until now worthless and usable.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I dunno if I'd go that far, but I'll be curious to see how compatible the pile of 3.5 stuff I already have is with it.

For some reason, I'm betting that they're going to switch over to something that more closely resembles the D20 Modern system. That's the direction they went with the new Star Wars RPG that came out this year. And just like the Star Wars "revised" edition pointed towards some of the things they changed in 3.5, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the new "Saga" edition pointed towards what they want to do in 4th Edition.

And this planned obselescence of game systems only a couple years old is completely planned, and completely intentional, to keep people buying essentially the same product over and over.

[Jmacq1]

But its all to much to soon. How long has 3.5 been out? I started playing in 2000 roughly, it can't be that long. Even if its some what compatible I find this kind of inconviencing. I mean for them to call it a new edition then it must be a massive overhaul to how the game is already played which will probably make most of the suppliments up until now worthless and usable.

Well, if they do the D20 Modern route, it's really only character creation that's significantly different. And even then, it's not so much in terms of stats as opposed to simply customization options. Still, the basic "stats" generally remain the same and the mechanics are all pretty much identical save for minor tweaks here and there.

And no matter what rule-changes go into effect, the "fluff" is always still good. But beyond that, I've learned over the years that sometimes...enough is indeed enough. There's TONS of 3.5 material out there, and it'll all still be available for years to come in some form or another. So you're absolutely right in that there's little reason to buy into a 4th edition unless you're dissatisfied with the rules they have now.

Which is what seems funny about all this to me: Why put out a 4th edition when there's such a massive amount of product available for 3.5, and you can still make money off of your back catalog of products for that edition?

There just doesn't seem to be any need for a 4th edition right now. Which is why I'm kinda taking this with a grain of salt until an official announcement is made.

[Jmacq1]

And this planned obselescence of game systems only a couple years old is completely planned, and completely intentional, to keep people buying essentially the same product over and over.

Well of course. It's only natural they'd take their cue from the computer and video game console business. :)

Beyond that...they -are- still a business that exists to make money. I can't think of a ton offhand that they can really do with 3.5 in the way of "new" stuff that hasn't already been done in some form or another.

I can, however, see 4th Edition turning into a huge bomb. Unless its' revisions are the best thing since sliced bread, there's little reason for folks to "upgrade." Not to mention completely disrupting the whole OGL aspect of things, so there's unlikely to be a stoppage of 3.5 edition product from other publishers. It just kinda seems like WotC will be shooting itself in the foot with this.

I mean, at least with Star Wars they took a couple years off from any RPG products before coming out with a new edition.

[Jmacq1]

Ah...apparently it has been officially announced, and is coming in May 2008.

And apparently the whole point is to unshackle WotC from the OGL. So basically 4E won't have an OGL. So the third party publishers will still be producing plenty of material for 3.5E, and Wizards is setting themselves up for massive failure.

Good to know.

[Perry Holley]

if this is some kind of announcement for 4th edition you can count me out. I will not buy anymore DnD books ever.I don't know if I'll never buy a copy, but I definately won't be picking it up blindly when it's released. At the very least, I'll wait until I can get some playtest reviews, and more likely wait until a 2nd printing (as the first printing will undoubtedly have a truckload of errors and typos in it) to pick up a copy.

[G. Wayne]

Hmph. Sucks to that. This is one of the big things that killed 40K and the like for me. Haven't heard a thing about this from the RPG fanatic friends of mine yet.

Ah...apparently it has been officially announced, and is coming in May 2008.

And apparently the whole point is to unshackle WotC from the OGL. So basically 4E won't have an OGL. So the third party publishers will still be producing plenty of material for 3.5E, and Wizards is setting themselves up for massive failure.

Good to know.

What praytell is "OGL"?

[Jmacq1]

OGL is the "Open Gaming License." It's the agreement that allows pretty much any publisher to use the D&D 3.5 rules to produce supplements and books of their own. And to use said rules as a baseline to modify into their own tweaked rulesets.

For lack of a better way to describe it, it makes the basic D&D 3.5 (also known as the "d20" rules) "public domain." It's the reason that there's been a huge explosion in the amount of product available in the RPG market in the past several years. And the reason that d20 rules have been adapted to almost every type of genre and licensed property imaginable.

The problem (from WotC's point of view) is that it's fuelled their own competition, as other companies have come out with games and settings that rival their own in-house settings. And the way the agreement is written, it never becomes null and void. These publishers can produce material with the 3.5 edition rules until the stars burn out, if they want, and Wizards of the Coast can't do a thing about it.

So the only way for Wizards of the Coast to "escape" is to create a new edition of the game, -not- make the rules open to all, and revamp all their in-house settings to follow those rules.

[lonewolf23k]

The first official previews of D&D 4e can be seen and heard here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=welcome/conventions/gencon07

[Gezora]

Didn't 3.5 just finish being.... finished!?

Who the hell does WOTC think they are? Upper Deck!?

........


Gamestore clerk humor, folks.

Work with me here.

[Kage Kisaragi]

I'm gonna try and restrain myself and just see what the hell they are up to.

[Shellhead]

WotC is in a tough spot. The OGL on 3.0/3.5 enabled them to sell vast numbers of the core books, but also put all of their own supplements in competition with a flood of other products. And they got a huge boost from the Lord of the Rings movies. But in order to move forward with new products that people will buy, WotC must do this 4.0 version. Problem is, there is zero demand for D&D 4.0. Comparisons to Microsoft's Vista will be inevitable.

I'm happy to hear about this. D&D 3.0/3.5 and LotR put a chokehold on RPGs for several years, forcing too many game companies to follow their lead or suffer a big dent in sales. Outstanding games like Legend of the Five Rings and Call of Cthulhu dropped their own decent game systems to awkwardly retrofit into D&D rules, losing what made them special in the first place. Maybe now other games will finally have the chance to get played.

Either way, it's too late for me. Console games, CCGs, larps, collectible miniatures games, boardgames and PC games have all taken big bites out of the fanbase that might play tabletop RPGs. And tabletop RPGs are a very time-consuming and unreliable form of entertainment, where a single disruptive player or unprepared DM can ruin an entire afternoon or evening. I have several boxes of RPGs gathering dust these days, including a few games that I never got around to playing (The Dying Earth, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Feng Shui) because so many friends were just obsessed with D&D and LotR. Now I'm burned out and may not bother playing RPGs again for years. No way I'm going to bother with D&D 4.0.

[Shellhead]

The most fun that I've had playing D&D in a long time was while playing the Temple of Elemental Evil PC game. It was an excellent conversion of a big first edition AD&D adventure, only updated to the 3.5 rules edition. D&D is pretty cool when the computer can make all the tedious calculations about encumbrance, initiative, to hit rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and especially attacks of opportunity.

Playing 3.5, or really any edition of D&D, as a tabletop RPG is a lumbering exercise in rules-speak.The rules usually destroy any atmosphere that the DM is trying to establish.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Playing 3.5, or really any edition of D&D, as a tabletop RPG is a lumbering exercise in rules-speak.The rules usually destroy any atmosphere that the DM is trying to establish.

Rules can do that, but they don't have to. Especially when everyone more or less knows the rules; they don't get in the way that much then.

Unfortunately, this is a hard state to achieve when the rules keep changing all the times.

Case in point, a quote from one of the last tabletop RPG sessions in which I played (very early DnD 3.5) - "I think my wizard wants to use speed (or haste, or whatever), but first... what does and doesn't that spell do *this* week?"

[G. Wayne]

...
Either way, it's too late for me. Console games, CCGs, larps, collectible miniatures games, boardgames and PC games have all taken big bites out of the fanbase that might play tabletop RPGs. And tabletop RPGs are a very time-consuming and unreliable form of entertainment, where a single disruptive player or unprepared DM can ruin an entire afternoon or evening. I have several boxes of RPGs gathering dust these days, including a few games that I never got around to playing (The Dying Earth, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Feng Shui) because so many friends were just obsessed with D&D and LotR. ...

You sound like a couple of my friends. They're big fans of trying different or new worlds and systems (Conan, Buffy, Mutants&Masterminds, World of Darkness, Rifts, Exalted, etc, etc.). On the whole, I'm fine with trying something different every now and then, but *my* problem with pulling out new games, at least in our case, was that it took a night to get everyone to generate a character, then we'd go back to that system maybe the next time around, and that was it. At least with the people I game with, as far as I'm concerned, unless all parties involved have some appreciation for the new setting, (like Star Wars compared to Aberrant) it's a waste of time and lost cause to try it.

But hey, I'm sitting on, among others, Wheel of Time, Deadlands and Marvel RPG books too. :)

[Shellhead]

Rules can do that, but they don't have to. Especially when everyone more or less knows the rules; they don't get in the way that much then.

Unfortunately, this is a hard state to achieve when the rules keep changing all the times.

Case in point, a quote from one of the last tabletop RPG sessions in which I played (very early DnD 3.5) - "I think my wizard wants to use speed (or haste, or whatever), but first... what does and doesn't that spell do *this* week?"

Some RPGs are just less intrusive. The Basic Role-Playing system (BRP) used in most Chaosium games was really easy. All skills were expressed as a percentage chance of success. Combat was initiative in order of Dexterity, a roll to hit, and maybe a roll for defense if the defender tried to parry or dodge the attack. Roll damage if the attack roll succeeds and the defense roll fails. There was more to it than that, but not much more. Hit point totals were realistically low, so players had an incentive to seek alternatives to combat when possible.

And at least one RPG system in my collection encourages role-playing instead of bogging it down: The Dying Earth. Based on the Jack Vance books, this game has the DM writing down quotes from the books or remarks that may prove relevant to the current session, or just funny statements, ideally with that distinctive style that Vance used in his Dying Earth stories. Think fortune cookie message, in terms of length. Players get bonus XP for appropriately saying the messages they draw or are assigned at the start of the session. This adds at least some style to the game, and can be used for foreshadowing or even hints about how to solve problems that arise in the adventure.

Examples: "Cugel, your concepts do you no credit!" or "I fear she is possessed by a demon."

One more cool thing about The Dying Earth rpg is the refreshing of dice pools. Basically, your skill level represents how many times you can re-roll a skill in an attempt to succeed or especially to best another character in some kind of conflict or challenge. Once you have used up all of your dice pool points, you must engage in some specific activity or inactivity to replenish that dice pool. For example, if your combat style is Ferocious and you use up all of your Ferocious combat dice pool, you must spend an entire evening pacing around angrily until you are so pissed off that you are now Ferocious in combat again.

[Subotai]

The most fun that I've had playing D&D in a long time was while playing the Temple of Elemental Evil PC game. It was an excellent conversion of a big first edition AD&D adventure, only updated to the 3.5 rules edition. D&D is pretty cool when the computer can make all the tedious calculations about encumbrance, initiative, to hit rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and especially attacks of opportunity.

I heard that was super-buggy. Glad it had its merits.

[Subotai]

But just curious - what are people's favourite editions of D&D?

[JeffreyWKramer]

But just curious - what are people's favourite editions of D&D?

I liked ADnD 2nd Edition until it got bogged down with endless sets of supplemental rules and a lot of really, really poorly-conceived, unbalanced character kits.

I think DnD 3.0 was a very good game, probably superior to all previous versions. If 3.5 had come out first, I'd probably also have been fine with it, but with it coming out and redoing so much stuff just a couple years after 3.0 started, it just pissed me off.

[GozertheGozarian]

I still play a hybrid of 1st and 2nd editions.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Some RPGs are just less intrusive. The Basic Role-Playing system (BRP) used in most Chaosium games was really easy. All skills were expressed as a percentage chance of success. Combat was initiative in order of Dexterity, a roll to hit, and maybe a roll for defense if the defender tried to parry or dodge the attack. Roll damage if the attack roll succeeds and the defense roll fails. There was more to it than that, but not much more. Hit point totals were realistically low, so players had an incentive to seek alternatives to combat when possible.

The Chaosium CALL OF CTHULHU ranks very high on my all-time favorite games list, but honestly, that's despite the rules rather than because of them. You're right they weren't particularly intrusive, which is a plus, but the Chaosium/Runequest system was nonetheless always fairly clunky - though it never got in the way of the fun.

[Shellhead]

I heard that was super-buggy. Glad it had its merits.

It was, but the first two patches fixed nearly everything, plus the designers did an unofficial patch that re-inserted the whorehouse in the evil town. Since then, there have been some impressive fan mods, including one that makes the NPC spellcasters much more effective in combat and also upgrades a number of traps in the game.

My favorite edition for adventures was original AD&D, for great stuff like Tamoachan and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. For actual rules, 3.0 was great. I never actually bought 3.5, so I don't know what it brought to the table.

[yeoman]

Rules can do that, but they don't have to. Especially when everyone more or less knows the rules; they don't get in the way that much then.


I'd definately agree with this. Having now been part of a campaign that's lasted over three years, early on, the game gets bogged down by rules, with the GM having to house rule stuff that doesn't make sense. After a while of playing the same system, everyone is more or less on the same page.

Combat in 3'5 went very, *very* slow the first few sessions, but, by the end of the first adventure, people more or less got the idea.

[Subotai]

My favorite edition for adventures was original AD&D, for great stuff like Tamoachan and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. For actual rules, 3.0 was great. I never actually bought 3.5, so I don't know what it brought to the table.

SPOILERS - if you play the current Savage Tide thread in Dungeon Magazine (last issue this month - cue Taps), you wind up visiting both the Shrine of Tamochoan and the Isle of Dread.

[Perry Holley]

I liked ADnD 2nd Edition until it got bogged down with endless sets of supplemental rules and a lot of really, really poorly-conceived, unbalanced character kits.

I think DnD 3.0 was a very good game, probably superior to all previous versions. If 3.5 had come out first, I'd probably also have been fine with it, but with it coming out and redoing so much stuff just a couple years after 3.0 started, it just pissed me off.Pretty much in agreement with all of this.

These days, I prefer a simpler approach to gaming, which is why I'm using Castles & Crusades instead of any of the D&D editions... it's got most of the options of 1st/2nd ed AD&D, but the complexity is closer to the old Basic/Expert D&D books.

[JeffreyWKramer]

SPOILERS - if you play the current Savage Tide thread in Dungeon Magazine (last issue this month - cue Taps), you wind up visiting both the Shrine of Tamochoan and the Isle of Dread.

HIDDEN SHRINE OF TAMOCHOAN is among my very favorite DnD adventures ever. Great dungeon.

[Perry Holley]

The Chaosium CALL OF CTHULHU ranks very high on my all-time favorite games list, but honestly, that's despite the rules rather than because of them. You're right they weren't particularly intrusive, which is a plus, but the Chaosium/Runequest system was nonetheless always fairly clunky - though it never got in the way of the fun.Getting increasingly off-topic, but... Jeffrey, have you ever looked at the Unknown Armies RPG? From what I know of your gaming preferences, I think you would really enjoy it.

[JeffreyWKramer]

My favorite edition for adventures was original AD&D, for great stuff like Tamoachan and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. For actual rules, 3.0 was great. I never actually bought 3.5, so I don't know what it brought to the table.

I loved a lot of the old-school DnD adventures.

The 3.5 stuff I saw... it was pretty annoying, really. It was mostly 3.0 rehash, with just enough changes to make using 3.0 stuff a pain in the ass.

Really, the whole 3.0/3.5 things struck me as some of the problems with MAGIC:THE GATHERING transferring over to DnD. Some of the spells and items and feats, as originally defined, were more or less made to be "broken" in clever combination with other spells, feats and such, so all of a sudden they get banned from competition or rewritten, and power-gamers have to buy the new set to dig through for the new broken combinations.

And again, it's hard for me to not view this as entirely intentional on the part of WotC.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Getting increasingly off-topic, but... Jeffrey, have you ever looked at the Unknown Armies RPG? From what I know of your gaming preferences, I think you would really enjoy it.

Yeah, I think I've still got a copy, even. It's one of those games I'd love to play or run but have never had the opportunity or been able to interest people in trying out.

[lonewolf23k]

I used to be a big fan of D&D 3rd, and then of 3.5...

But after a few attempts at DMing, the system's complexity got to me. If D&D 4e can make things easier, and offer me a chance to host games online (I have trouble finding groups where I live), then I might give it a shot.

Otherwise, I'm going to stay with GURPS as my first choice of systems.

[Perry Holley]

Yeah, I think I've still got a copy, even. It's one of those games I'd love to play or run but have never had the opportunity or been able to interest people in trying out.If you don't mind me asking, as a therapist, what is your opinion on UA's Madness Meter system?

[JeffreyWKramer]

If you don't mind me asking, as a therapist, what is your opinion on UA's Madness Meter system?

I haven't looked at that game in so long that I don't even remember what the game mechanics are, so I'm afraid I don't have an opinion.

Most such systems in most games aren't particularly reflective of reality, but they aren't any less so than most of what you find in the media.

[macul]

I liked ADnD 2nd Edition until it got bogged down with endless sets of supplemental rules and a lot of really, really poorly-conceived, unbalanced character kits.

I think DnD 3.0 was a very good game, probably superior to all previous versions. If 3.5 had come out first, I'd probably also have been fine with it, but with it coming out and redoing so much stuff just a couple years after 3.0 started, it just pissed me off.

Same for me. I enjoyed 2nd edition just fine until the class and race books were published. I believe I can pinpoint the beginning of my disdain when the first Bladesinger popped in our game. It was all downhill from there.

3rd edition really isn't a bad game. I do kind of like it to be honest and it was probably needed, but I don't like my pencil and paper RPGs to be treated as software revisions, which is what is the current trend. 3.0 -> 3.5 -> 4.0. 4.5 won't be far behind.

[Subotai]

Exactly. They won't knock out the kinks in 4.0, so for people purchasing the new edition, why not wait until 4.5?

[Astonishing X-Fan]

I think 3/3.5 is a fantastic system, and I really question the need for a 4th edition already.

[Serik]

But after a few attempts at DMing, the system's complexity got to me. If D&D 4e can make things easier, and offer me a chance to host games online (I have trouble finding groups where I live), then I might give it a shot.

Yeah, online games with a solid group would be amazingly fun. Perhaps a CBR group at some point? I've always wanted to play D&D, but there's no groups around here either.

[Perry Holley]

Swiped without pity from ENworld...

Races:

* Mentioned some race disappearing from core (bets go for the Gnome), possibly to be included in an early supplement.
* Tiefling included, and they look much more demonic than now (almost half-demon).
* Changeling from Eberron may be included.
* "Dwarven resilience, elven evasion, a half-elf’s inspiring presence" mentioned as racial traits.
* Classes can be improved by racial feats, in a similar way to how current racial substitution levels work.
* All classes have at will, per encounter and per day abilities. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928)

Classes:

* Levels go up to 30, instead of 20;
Level division: (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928)
o 1-10 Heroic - foes are orcs and ogres, some giants, small dragons. Adventures tend to be local.
o 11-20 Paragon - on par with the current low to mid teens right now. Bigger threats are faced that might threaten a kingdom.
o 21-30 Epic- World or Planar threats.
* The goal is to have the levels play in a similar manner - they don't want a 25th character overwhelmed with 80 abilities. The main differences should be in the story, not how they play.
* From GamerZer0's interview with James Wyatt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAw490qUAjs): There are four "roles".
o Defender: fighter & paladin classes
o Leader: cleric & warlord classes
o Controller: wizard class
o Striker: rogue & ranger classes
* Although two PCs may serve the same role, they may do it in different ways. (Like fighters with different styles.) The roles are geared towards combat; a PC's non-combat aspects can differentiate him further. He also said that they are still considering the possibility of there being a class or two that doesn't quite fit the four "roles"
* Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard definitely stay (multiple mentions and examples). Also mentioned Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger. Mentioned that wizard and sorcerer won't merge. Sorcerer (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928) will be different from wizards in more ways than just resource management.
* Mentioned that paladins can be of other alignments other than lawful good. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13461548&postcount=2)
* Mentioned a warlord class
* Druid mentioned in D&D's seminar's summary (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928)
* Backstab mentioned.
* Fighter's "powers" depend highly on the weapon they chose as primary - spears have different "powers" available than axes; swords and greatswords are very flexible in terms of said "powers"
* Wisdom helps with power selection.
* Mentioned a "rain of blows" power or maneuver for swords; mentioned making a choice between taking the abilities "Supreme Cleave" or "Massive Strike".
* More on martial abilities (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070820a): "A skilled halberdier can hack a foe with his weapon’s blade and spin around to smash a second foe with the haft. A fighter with a longsword disarms her foe with a flick of her wrist, while a battle hungry axeman cleaves through shields, armor, and bone." "Rogues have a similar relationship with skills. A nimble rogue dives through the air to tumble past an ogre, while a charismatic one tricks an enemy into looking away just before she delivers a killing blow with her dagger. Just as fighters do more with weapons than any other character, rogues push skills beyond the limits that constrain other PCs."
* Cleric mentioned creating a "surge of healing power (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070822a)" alongside a critical hit. This hints (yet unconfirmed) to mechanics similar to some Crusader maneuvers, from Tome of Battle.
* Some current base classes disappear; classes yet to be mentioned and therefore good candidates are Monk and Bard. Classes that don't appear in the PHB will appear in future products (http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497515.html)
Psionics not to be included in core, though they'll have support (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928).
* Prestige classes stay (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928).

Feats and skills:

* Move silently and hide rolled into one ("Stealth?")
* Some of the more obscure or less used skills disappear (mentioned tailor and rope use)
* Mentioned that Sage should be "considered a preview [of the skill system]"
* Feats won't form long chains (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928).
* There will be rules akin to the retraining rules in PHBII (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928)- they don't like the idea of people planning their careers from level 1 to 30.

Combat and encounters:

* Rules for non-combat encounters (http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497803.html). The example given was social interaction. Unlike 3E, where negotiation amounts to a single Diplomacy check, it's treated almost like a combat in 4E. I make a skill check, but I also tell the DM what/how I'm doing. The opponent responds with behavior (and a check) of his own. I counter with a new check, and new words. And so forth.
* Saves mentioned (http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497803.html)
AC mentioned (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070822a), apparently with the same function as it has today.
* Free, immediate, move and standard actions mentioned (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070822a). (it stands to reason Swift actions will be present too).
* Critical hits mentioned.
* Attacks of opportunity gone or greatly changed/simplified: a fighter charges a dragon (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070822a) and no AoO is mentioned.
* Grapple greatly simplified.
* Confirmation rolls for critical hits possibly go away.
* Combat still uses a square grid

Spells and magic:

* Vancian system survives, but it's only a "fraction (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928)" of the magic (or magic options) available to characters: "a wizard who casts all his memorized per day spells should be at about 80% of power."
* "Wizards will be able to cast 25th-level spells (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13473454&postcount=6)."
* Fireballs don't deal 1d6/level damage (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13496433&postcount=7) any more. Also, game breaking spells (spells that fundamentally change the gaming scenario, like etherealness, scrying, and save or die effects) "have been addressed as well".
* Mentioned a "ray of freezing cold (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070822a)".

Magic items

* Magic item creation doesn't use XP (http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497803.html) or require a feat.

Monsters:

* The monsters will have their own roles and their own abilities (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13457928#post13457928)- the orc will have orc abilities, not fighter or barbarian abilites
* Monsters no longer (http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497803.html) drain XP (implied no draining of levels?)
* Vulnerability to energy likely to work differently (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070822a) in 4e, with additional effects (like slowing in the case of cold) instead of (or in addition to?) extra damage.
* "The ettin (http://mouseferatu.livejournal.com/497515.html), for instance, has the whole two-heads thing, so it can go twice in one round, and take unrelated actions."
* Ancient (red?) dragons apparently now can do a lot of things (http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070822a):
o An inferno aura, useable as a free action.
o A tail slap attack with an added pushback effect, useable as a free action.
o Two claw attacks, useable as a standard action.
o A fireball spit that sticks to the target dealing extra damage, useable as a standard action.
o A breath weapon, but we don't get to see what kind of action it normally takes - a free one like the inferno aura, as different uses of the same ability?
o A special action granting an extra standard action.
o They may take an immediate action to use their breath weapon when reduced blow half damage.
o They may take an immediate action to use their tail slap when about to be flanked.
* Said dragon would have around 1000 hit points.There's a lot here that I like, to be honest: non-LG paladins, Feats not forming long chains, de-emphasizing having to plan out your entire career from 1st level, the removal of AoO, and less emphasis on the Vancian "fire and forget" magic system. OTOH, from what I've seen there is still a heavy emphasis on miniatures, and they seem to be pushing the game toward online play, which isn't really what draws me to tabletop RPGs.

[JeffreyWKramer]

So, it really is a completely new edition, as different from 3/3.5 as they were from ADnD 2nd Edition. So, all the rulebooks and supplements and all that can be redone and resold yet again.

This just confirms my decision to have nothing whatsoever to do with this, or with WotC products in general at this point.

[Perry Holley]

Presented without comment...

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070824

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070825

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070827

[Shellhead]

I really do understand why WotC feels the (financial) need to do 4.0. Rather than nitpicking individual changes from Perry's long list (despite the temptation), I just wonder who WotC sees as their target market for all these changes. WotC may not have made as much money as they could have if that open license had been handled differently, but unless they have a ton of content in the works, players are more likely to stick with the wealth of material generated for 3.0/3.5.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I really do understand why WotC feels the (financial) need to do 4.0.

So do I. Greed.

If the rules for football, baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis and such changed dramatically every few years, such that the skills an athlete works at honing suddenly don't provide the advantage they used to, I'm guessing few people would stick with such sports. But, they don't change, and that's why sports are as close as we get to universal leisure activities, and gaming continues as a niche industry mostly the province of weirdos and fanatics.

But, WotC doesn't care, so long as they can keep tricking the same small core of people into buying the newest version of the same damn thing over and over. Why go the trouble of inventing something new when you can keep reinventing the wheel?

[Kage Kisaragi]

I'm hear a lot of awesome things about 4e over at the WotC message boards, some directly from the officles themselves. I must say I'm really stoked now. :)

The ideas that I've heard might be implemented have me drooling. Imagine playing a Fighter Wizard with just multiclassing and still being able to cast high level spells and being a decent fighter. :D

Even straights Fighters now actually have REAL Options in combat similiar to some of things found in the Tomb of Battle ahh man what a exciting time to be alive and a gamer. I havent attented a Campaign in sometime, I must just write characters just for the hell of it, trying new combinations and what now and filing them on my PC. Now here about how Multiclassing wont make you a sucky 2 type of class characters, and that race will always be important, that every class will basically be able to branch out and develope in different ways so that no two Player Characters are the same unless they intentionally try to make the same character, wow just wow.

Things that are supposedly in.

Racial Substitution Levels for all classes
Racial Feats that continously improve so that racial benefits stay important.
Down playing Magic Items so that the actual class is more important than the gear they are wearing.
atleast 25 different spell levels.
Talent Trees for classes.
Spells Per day, per encounter and at will.
NO MORE LEVEL ADJUSTMENTS!!!!!!!! UBER AWESOME!!!!!
Multiclassing not being a pain in the ass.
The option for Non Lawful Good Paladins and Paladins of different deities.
Tougher Characters. No more dropping the Wizard with one arrow at first level.
Weapons offer different attack options, but the Fighter gets the best use of them.

And a parently a few other things that haven't been comfirmed. All in all its sounding good.

[Jmacq1]

So do I. Greed.

If the rules for football, baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis and such changed dramatically every few years, such that the skills an athlete works at honing suddenly don't provide the advantage they used to, I'm guessing few people would stick with such sports. But, they don't change, and that's why sports are as close as we get to universal leisure activities, and gaming continues as a niche industry mostly the province of weirdos and fanatics.

But, WotC doesn't care, so long as they can keep tricking the same small core of people into buying the newest version of the same damn thing over and over. Why go the trouble of inventing something new when you can keep reinventing the wheel?

Yeah, we get it: WotC is greedy and evil, and you're not buying their stuff anymore.

Of course it's greed. The company exists to make money. Talking about an attempt to make more money as though it's somehow unusual, unexpected, or "wrong" is like saying you don't expect a fish to swim.

WotC wants to unsaddle themselves from the OGL, that's fine and likely a smart move for their part. If the new system offers a playing experience that ends up being more enjoyable than the old system, then it's a worthy product, regardless of the motives behind bringing it out. Nobody's putting a gun to anyone's head and telling them they have to buy it, and it's not like there'll be any shortage of 3.5 material published by other companies for several years to come.

I'm with some of the others who have mentioned that they don't think there's any "need" among the gaming community for a vastly revamped 4th edition, but I don't begrudge WotC for doing it. It's not as if all those 3.5 books people own are going to spontaneously combust on the release date for 4th Edition.

But anyway, I don't think trying to make it sound like anyone who buys 4th edition is some kind of gullible idiot for doing so is going to be a particularly effective counter-argument.

[Shellhead]

I think that the OGL move was brutally short-sighted and 4.0 will be dead on arrival. I really don't mind WotC trying to make some more money off one of their best products, but the glut of 3.0/3.5 products is an obstacle that they probably won't be able to overcome. Some of the changes that Perry listed are bold choices, but probably won't go over well with the core fanbase for D&D.

[Jmacq1]

I think that the OGL move was brutally short-sighted and 4.0 will be dead on arrival. I really don't mind WotC trying to make some more money off one of their best products, but the glut of 3.0/3.5 products is an obstacle that they probably won't be able to overcome. Some of the changes that Perry listed are bold choices, but probably won't go over well with the core fanbase for D&D.

I tend to agree. 4th Edition will likely sell (initially) only to the hardest of hardcore D&D gamers, and perhaps a smaller number of folks that are just curious enough to pick up the book and see what it offers.

Beyond that, the 3.5 edition juggernaut is just too dang big to stop now. There are too many companies that have bought in to jump to a new system now. Even with WotC making promises that they'll be generous with licensing 4th Edition, I don't see a lot of companies shifting over wholesale anytime soon.

If 4th Edition really is a significant improvement over 3.5, people will slowly trickle over as word-of-mouth gets around. But they've got a whole heck of a lot of mileage to overtake to overcome 3.5. Heck, I'd say the best business move they could probably make is to continue to publish at least the 3.5 PHB and DMG in limited numbers every year.

[macul]

Mentioned that paladins can be of other alignments other than lawful good.

Hasn't that been a house rule for 95% of D&Ders for years anyway?

[Shellhead]

Despite my negative remarks about D&D earlier in this thread, I have to admit that I saw some great material for 3.5 at the friendly neighborhood comic/game store last week. There was that massive city book Ptolus, which has been getting rave reviews. There was a sourcebook for running a campaign in the same setting as the Black Company books. And there were at least two other interesting things that I don't remember offhand.

[Slam_Bradley]

I honestly haven't been interested in any D & D since first edition AD&D. In my opinion it was never broken and thus never needed fixed. I picked up a couple of 3E books, and they were really pretty, but they confused me, a long time gamer. I don't like "feats" I don't like 80 different abilities. I like a stripped down game mechanic with few rules and lots of role-play.

So, I break out my 1st edition stuff now and then and play with the chitlens and an old buddy from high school.

If I'm going to buy anything new it's going to be Castles & Crusades which is backward compatible with 1st edition and for which E. Gary Gygax is adapting Castle Greyhawk as Castle Zagyg.

[Perry Holley]

I just wonder who WotC sees as their target market for all these changes. Honestly? I'm pretty certain it's not us... and I don't mean that in a negative or sarcastic manner.

There's an old adage (I have no idea if it's true or not, but bear with me here) that if you take a snapshot of comic book readers at any given time, and if you then jump forward 5 years, 80% of that snapshot audience is no longer reading comics; they've moved on to other things, and (hopefully) there's enough new readers to fill the void of the 80% who left.

I suspect tabletop roleplayers are of a similar nature. Sure, there's there's longtime gamers like us who have been around a while and played through multiple editions of D&D, but a lot of people, I suspect, get into gaming for a few years, then drop out for whatever reason, and again hopefully there's enough new blood getting into gaming at the same time to keep the hobby/industry viable.

I strongly suspect that it's not the long-term gamers that WOTC's going after (although they want them too, of course), but rather they want the new gamers, the ones who haven't been through the edition wars, and they especially want the potential tabletop gamers that they've lost to WOW and the like.

It's something of a shame for the people who've invested heavily in 3.5, but if WOTC isn't making enough money from the corebooks and supplements at this point to justify continuing the line, then yeah, from a business perspective they need to work on a new edition. In the end, it's up to each individual gamer to decide whether or not they want to hop on the 4.0 train, or just stick with 3.x (mind you, this is coming from the guy who still plays RPGs that have been out of print for over two decades, so I don't ee the need myself for jumping on a new edition just because it's new and shiny).

At least, that's my 2 cp on the subject.

[Perry Holley]

If I'm going to buy anything new it's going to be Castles & Crusades which is backward compatible with 1st edition and for which E. Gary Gygax is adapting Castle Greyhawk as Castle Zagyg.If you're on the fence regarding C&C, you can check out the C&C quickstart PDF here (http://www.trolllord.com/newsite/downloads/pdfs/cnc_qs.pdf).

[GozertheGozarian]

I honestly haven't been interested in any D & D since first edition AD&D. In my opinion it was never broken and thus never needed fixed. I picked up a couple of 3E books, and they were really pretty, but they confused me, a long time gamer. I don't like "feats" I don't like 80 different abilities. I like a stripped down game mechanic with few rules and lots of role-play.

So, I break out my 1st edition stuff now and then and play with the chitlens and an old buddy from high school.

If I'm going to buy anything new it's going to be Castles & Crusades which is backward compatible with 1st edition and for which E. Gary Gygax is adapting Castle Greyhawk as Castle Zagyg.
Nice. I'm not a fan of the d20 system and still dust off my 1st ed chars from time to time.

[JeffreyWKramer]

But anyway, I don't think trying to make it sound like anyone who buys 4th edition is some kind of gullible idiot for doing so is going to be a particularly effective counter-argument.

Probably not, since it's hard to talk sense to gullible idiots.

[JeffreyWKramer]

It's something of a shame for the people who've invested heavily in 3.5, but if WOTC isn't making enough money from the corebooks and supplements at this point to justify continuing the line, then yeah, from a business perspective they need to work on a new edition.

Yet, lots of companies make lots of money making sports gear and such for activities that remain stable.

If WotC treated DnD as something with a stable core, and focused on coming up with quality supplemental products rather than just flooding the market with product, I'm betting they'd still make a respectable profit.

[Jmacq1]

Yet, lots of companies make lots of money making sports gear and such for activities that remain stable.

If WotC treated DnD as something with a stable core, and focused on coming up with quality supplemental products rather than just flooding the market with product, I'm betting they'd still make a respectable profit.

Quality, however, is entirely subjective. Ask ten different players/readers about a given book and you'll likely get at least three or four differing opinions.

The problem with WotC is that there's very little ground left to cover in 3.5 Edition that hasn't already been trod over either by WotC itself or one of their competitors/"partners" thanks to the OGL. It's especially hard to pull off without unleashing more and more "optional rules" that for all intents and purposes may as well turn it into a new edition of the game anyway.

[JeffreyWKramer]

The problem with WotC is that there's very little ground left to cover in 3.5 Edition that hasn't already been trod over either by WotC itself or one of their competitors/"partners" thanks to the OGL. It's especially hard to pull off without unleashing more and more "optional rules" that for all intents and purposes may as well turn it into a new edition of the game anyway.

If they wanted to make DnD a serious, long-term hobby activity rather than a short-term cash cow, then the OGL was definitely a bad idea. As is, it worked fairly well for their short-term-mindedness.

As far as the other... books of new character classes balanced with the PH ones, new spells, items, races, monsters... setting material... variant capaigns like Eberon or the Realms (or, going back further and into greater variance, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Al Qadim, Ravenloft, etc.). These are things that expand the options in the game without any need for redoing the system. The PSIONICS HANDBOOK is a good example. Some such products didn't sell well in the past, true - GREYHAWK, for example, was pretty much always a long-term loser in the market - but often this had to do with poorly-conceived or indifferently-produced product (a lot of the various "complete" books and character kids for ADnD 2nd Ed or the dry prose and often-amateurish art in the Al Qadim books, for instance) rather than anything innately wrong with the basic concept. Back ages ago, the original UNEARTHED ARCANA was the first gaming book ever to break onto bookstore best-seller lists.

[GozertheGozarian]

I had to play Greyhawk, it was the only premade world until the tail end of 1st ed.

[Perry Holley]

The madness continues...

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070828

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070829

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070830

[Slam_Bradley]

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070830


That last one slayed me.

[Perry Holley]

That last one slayed me.It's funny 'cause it's true!

[Perry Holley]

An example of play, swiped from the WOTC boards:

We work hard at Wizards, but some of our work is all play. I recruited my gaming buddies to test the game further at home and to see what its like to DM with the new rules. The players got to test the character side of things, and I got to experience adventure building and monsters.

My players like a reason to adventure together beyond being mutually employed by the same bloke who relies on the local watering hole to hire mercenaries. So they created a mostly human party of 1st level PCs who are all affiliated with a local count. The warlord, Domna, is the baron’s youngest daughter, and Tian, the rogue, is Domna’s lifelong friend and also the son of the leader of baron’s personal mercenary troop. Sasha, the wizard, is daughter to the baron’s chancellor, and guarding her is Robozcniek, a warforged fighter. Rounding out the group is Heron, an eladrin ranger who was a childhood friend of Tian and Domna. Long story short, the political situation made the count’s having a team of specialists with a little legal authority a good thing. My having a party under direct influence of a local ruler was even better.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n67/Knightsky_2006/20070831a_play_1th.jpg

I wanted to whip up something that showcased the new game’s tech, but I wanted to do it quickly. Using Own K. C. Stevens’s A Dark and Stormy Knight (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20050329a) as inspiration, I designed a haunted tomb under a tor. One of the count’s barons had been rewarding retiring soldiers with frontier land near the tor, and these farmers recently spotted goblin scouts ranging toward a fallen tower built atop the tor by citizens of a long-gone hobgoblin kingdom. Then a little girl disappeared, along with some livestock. The count dispatched Domna and her friends to investigate the situation.

After traveling to the outlying farmsteads, which were fortified yards surrounded by fields, and speaking with one of the farmers, the PCs determined that one home might have come under attack the night before. They investigated, and they soon saw the farm’s stockade gate was open and the inner yard, where livestock was usually kept at night, was empty but drenched in blood. Heron noticed some large wolf tracks leading into the yard, and the party cautiously entered, expecting goblins.

Right they were. To the east, Heron spotted saddled wolves in the barn and a goblin archer in the barn’s loft. Tian spied another goblin peeking out of the modest farmhouse to the north. Neither chose to warn their oblivious comrades, so a surprise round was my players’ first contact with 4th Edition combat.

Their second impression came squarely from the three arrows with which Heron skewered the hapless goblin sharpshooter in the loft. That poor goblin fired on Heron, missing but triggering an immediate counterattack from the ranger, who followed up with two more arrows on his turn. The sharpshooter was dead before the third arrow struck home.

Taking a cue from Heron’s boldness, thinking the fight might be over quickly, Tian rushed to the house despite protests from Domna that he was overextending himself and thereby the party. Tian arrived at the closed front door and threw it open, but couldn’t quite reach the javelin-wielding miscreant within.

Too far out in front, Tian and Heron soon learned their mistake. The wolves rushed Heron, easily flanking him and pulling him to the ground. The goblin skirmisher in the house hurled a black-shafted javelin at Tian and scored a critical hit! Tian lost more than half his hit points in one blow, and to add insult to injury, the goblin then scampered out of the house’s open back door to a tree on its west side.

But then the first regular round started. Domna rushed a wolf and missed it, after shouting encouragement to her friends (providing a small bonus to them). The wolves continued to tear at Heron, almost sending the unfortunate ranger to death’s door. Sasha used a wizard strike with her staff, not only injuring a wolf, but also pushing it away from the prone Heron. This gave Heron the room he needed to stand, move away from his assailants, and regain a few hit points with a second wind. On his first regular turn, Tian used his second wind, then pursued the goblin by leaving the front door and running to intercept at the tree. He missed the wily skirmisher with his attack. The goblin cackled and backed away, then hurled another javelin at Tian—for another natural 20! Down Tian went, dying. Moving closer to Tian, the skirmisher started to reach for the knife on his belt to finish the rogue off. Robozcniek cut that thought short, literally, running across the battlefield, then charging the skirmisher and finishing the little dastard with one swift longsword stroke. On the second regular round, Domna struck the wounded wolf, trying to keep it off Heron. That wolf attacked Domna, but she fended it off with her shield. But the uninjured wolf smelled blood, and it took Heron down again, this time knocking the eladrin out. Sasha maneuvered to blast both wolves with another strike from her staff, pushing the one attacking Heron away again. Robozcniek rushed across the battlefield a second time, and he terribly wounded the wolf that had been attacking Heron.

As the initiative count came to the top again, Domna used her tactical acumen to attack in such a way that the wolf she hit opened itself up to Robozcniek. The warforged struck true, and the wolf collapsed in a heap. Badly wounded and alone against many enemies, the remaining wolf tucked tail and ran, but Sasha was having none of it. She pulled out all the stops and set off a fiery blast around the fleeing beast. It tumbled down, still smoldering. Their first real battle over, the heroes still standing aided their fallen friends—who had learned a valuable lesson. Investigation of the farmstead and more adventure remained ahead of them.I'm intrigued by this 'Second Wind' ability, but overall it sounds like 4th ed combat may have that same overly-fiddly feel that drove me away from 3.x.

[Shellhead]

An example of play, swiped from the WOTC boards:

I'm intrigued by this 'Second Wind' ability, but overall it sounds like 4th ed combat may have that same overly-fiddly feel that drove me away from 3.x.

That campaign concept sounds great, and the write-up of the fight scene is good. But yeah, it does sound like they have sacrificed playability for realism again. 1st edition may have been a sloppy set of rules, kind of a haphazard collection of house rules built up over time before getting published, but at least the only complex part of combat was the spell-casting. (I don't know much about 2nd edition except that they added in all those skill slots.)

But it seems like 3.0 was when the combat system became complex. The overall trend has been to imitate everything good about the highly tactical GURPS combat system, overlooking the fact that GURPS is a pain to run. I say that as someone who spent years running both 1st edition AD&D and GURPS 2nd/3rd edition. Lord, I used to run a weekly GURPS fantasy campaign for eleven players... I only lasted about 10 months before I burned out.

[Jmacq1]

An example of play, swiped from the WOTC boards:

I'm intrigued by this 'Second Wind' ability, but overall it sounds like 4th ed combat may have that same overly-fiddly feel that drove me away from 3.x.

Second Wind is included in the new Star Wars Saga Edition.

If I recall correctly, it basically allows you to "insta-heal" a certain amount (I believe 25% of your max total?) of HP, once a day (though you can take feats and abilities that improve the ability and/or allow you to use it more often) and every character has it.

Of course they also try to emphasize that HP is meant to be an abstract and not simply blood loss/actual wounding, but a combination of stamina, physical toughness, and even luck to an extent.

Overall though, Saga Edition combat does seem considerably more streamlined than D&D 3.0 or 3.5 though I doubt it'll be exactly the same.

[Perry Holley]

http://conk.com/files/images/phb.preview.jpg

[Shellhead]

I'm getting a manga vibe from that artwork. Maybe they are aiming this game at teens and 20-somethings?

[Jmacq1]

I'm getting a manga vibe from that artwork. Maybe they are aiming this game at teens and 20-somethings?

I'm sure they'd love to capture that market.

Come to think of it, the hordes of kids that were playing Pokemon a few years back are just reaching the age where D&D might be appealing to them, aren't they?

But that artist has been around for a little while now, or at least has been doing quite a bit of art for WotC in the last few years.

[Draconomicon]

I'm getting a manga vibe from that artwork. Maybe they are aiming this game at teens and 20-somethings?

Huh?
Good god, no, that is Wayne Reynolds ( http://www.waynereynolds.com/Menu.htm ) who did a lot of art for Dragon/Dungeon and for several Monster Manuals and source books. If anything, his art is influenced by Marvel comics. In fact, he did draw an ongoing Story within the pages of an UK Warhammer40k Comic.

[Shellhead]

Huh?
Good god, no, that is Wayne Reynolds ( http://www.waynereynolds.com/Menu.htm ) who did a lot of art for Dragon/Dungeon and for several Monster Manuals and source books. If anything, his art is influenced by Marvel comics. In fact, he did draw an ongoing Story within the pages of an UK Warhammer40k Comic.

So you don't think that Marvel artists or even Wayne himself are into anime or manga? Marvel tried to do an entire product line for the manga market just a few years ago, although it didn't work out.

[Draconomicon]

So you don't think that Marvel artists or even Wayne himself are into anime or manga? Marvel tried to do an entire product line for the manga market just a few years ago, although it didn't work out.

Well, of course they are, but his art is really not in the vein of mangas.
Id argue there is a definitive influence by John Buscema within his art visible.

[Perry Holley]

Maybe they are aiming this game at teens and 20-somethings?With the possible exception of the OD&D little brown books, has there ever been an edition of A/D&D not aimed primarily at either teens and/or 20-somethings?

[Shellhead]

With the possible exception of the OD&D little brown books, has there ever been an edition of A/D&D not aimed primarily at either teens and/or 20-somethings?

Could be, but I bet the average age of tabletop role-players has been gradually moving up. The younger gamers are much more interested in console games, PC games, and even CCGs.

[Jmacq1]

Could be, but I bet the average age of tabletop role-players has been gradually moving up. The younger gamers are much more interested in console games, PC games, and even CCGs.

I dunno if it's as bad with the RPG market as it is with the Comic market. Or at least the "age creep" is slower. I still see plenty of teens and twentysomethings gathered around the gaming tables at my local game store on weekends. Though they're playing a mix of CCGs, Miniature Wargames, and traditional RPGs. There's a lot of bleed-over between the three (Ie people that buy one often get into the other two, at least to some degree).

But there's always the desire to get more of the younger market. Especially since regardless of the demographics, the RPG market is still pretty small, all told. WotC wants to recapture the glory days of the late 70's/early 80's when it seemed like everyone and their mother had at least played D&D a couple of times.

[Perry Holley]

A sample monster stat block for the 4th edition rules have been posted online:

Spined Devil
Medium Immortal Humanoid (Devil)
Level 6 Skirmisher

Init +5 Speed 5 Fly 7

Senses Nethersight, Perception +5

Resists Fire 20

AC 20 Fort 18 Ref 18 Will 18

HP/Blooded 47/23

ATTACKS
Melee 2 claws +9 vs AC each; 2d4+4
Spine Rain Standard, Ranged 10; +9 Dex vs. Ref; 1d6+2 + 2d6 Fire AND Poison 5, Slowed while Poisoned.

SKILLS Spot +10

Str +7(19) Dex +5(14) Con +5(15) Int +5(15) Wis +5(14) Cha +5(15)

If nothing else, it's a lot more streamlined than the 3rd ed stat blocks were...

[Jinxer]

A sample monster stat block for the 4th edition rules have been posted online:

Spined Devil
Medium Immortal Humanoid (Devil)
Level 6 Skirmisher

Init +5 Speed 5 Fly 7

Senses Nethersight, Perception +5

Resists Fire 20

AC 20 Fort 18 Ref 18 Will 18

HP/Blooded 47/23

ATTACKS
Melee 2 claws +9 vs AC each; 2d4+4
Spine Rain Standard, Ranged 10; +9 Dex vs. Ref; 1d6+2 + 2d6 Fire AND Poison 5, Slowed while Poisoned.

SKILLS Spot +10

Str +7(19) Dex +5(14) Con +5(15) Int +5(15) Wis +5(14) Cha +5(15)

If nothing else, it's a lot more streamlined than the 3rd ed stat blocks were...

They did this with the Star Wars game, I love it.

I'm still really anxious about 4th ed though. I'm just glad I didn't sink all my money into Forgotten Realms books seeing as they'll probably be obsolete now.

[Perry Holley]

If I read this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3876623#post3876623) correctly, publishers like Green Ronin and Mongoose won't be able to do 3rd-party supplements for 4th edition D&D.

Edit: It looks like they can still publish something that will be OGL compatible, but a 4th ed equivalent of the d20 logo looks like it might no longer be an option.

[Jmacq1]

Correct. Third parties that want to do 4th Edition products will have to pay licensing fees to WotC (which they don't have to do for OGL/d20/3.5 ed). They can continue to publish 3/3.5 Edition/OGL products until the sun burns out, however.

That's part of why this is actually somewhat of a gamble for WotC. With third parties still able to support 3.5 Edition, now they're REALLY going to be competing, at least for the next several years until all those 3.5 Edition PHBs, DMGs, and MMs sell through (and even then, publishers can basically reprint most of those rules). I wouldn't be surprised if this was WotCs plan from the get go: Use the OGL to revitalize the tabletop RPG market (which it did), then try to capture that market with a new edition and leave the OGL publishers in the dust. I'm just not sure the plan hasn't already backfired on them.

Advance buzz among fellow gamers in my neck of the woods is NOT good. Rules streamlining and greater customization are seen as pluses, but the all-but-inevitable heavy reliance on miniatures (though they'll claim up and down that you don't -really- need them) and now the whole "pay us more so you can have online access to more complete information" aspect of it are huge turn-offs.

[Perry Holley]

As a result of 3.x being phased out, Green Ronin is blowing out their d20 stuff for uber-cheap:

d20 Apocalypse sale (http://paizo.com/store/sale/greenRonin)

I wouldn't be surprised to see other d20 publishers doing so as well.

[Draconomicon]

As a result of 3.x being phased out, Green Ronin is blowing out their d20 stuff for uber-cheap:

d20 Apocalypse sale (http://paizo.com/store/sale/greenRonin)

I wouldn't be surprised to see other d20 publishers doing so as well.

Considering "Fluff wise" their books have very often been very high quality, this is an awesome deal.

I quite liked their Races of renown books, especially "Aasimar and Tiefling - Guidebook to the Planetouched" which is, imho, one of the best books regarding planetouched races.

[DarkBlade]

Bwar. I grabbed several of them, but didn't grab that one. Ah well.

Thanks for the heads up, Perry!

[Perry Holley]

Yeah, as soon as my next check from work clears, I'm going on a shopping spree... :evilsmile

[DarkBlade]

I kinda wish I'd grabbed a few more 3.5 DM screens. I'm too used to the Amazon shipping deals. I might go back and do it. Hey Perry, do you know if that VtM comic is any good?

Dungeons & Dragons: 3.5 Dungeon Master's Screen
Legions of Hell (d20)
Ultramodern Firearms Hardcover (d20 Modern)
Testament RPG (d20)
Fang & Fury: A Guidebook to Vampires (d20)
The Witch's Handbook (d20)
The Avatar's Handbook (d20)
The Cavalier's Handbook (d20)
Medieval Player's Manual (d20)
Eternal Rome (d20)
Dungeons & Dragons: Three-Dragon Ante--Not on sale, but I've been meaning to pick up a deck and shipping cost for it alone made it not worth it to me before.

[Perry Holley]

Hey Perry, do you know if that VtM comic is any good?No idea, sorry.

[DarkBlade]

Watch out.. if you placed your order later, a bunch of it may get canceled. I placed a second order (was waiting on a paycheck and a couple secret santa names) and ordered a bunch of stuff, mostly for gifts.. they notified me today that half my $#@%*# order has been canceled. Their "making things right" is a 25% off coupon at some point early next year. I'm less than thrilled.

[Perry Holley]

I'm less than thrilled.Same here. I had about 4 of the 11 items I ordered cancelled out today... and I ordered pretty early into the sale.

NOT a happy camper. Kinda regret posting that link now, and would like to apologize to anyone who bought stuff there because of me posting it.

(By comparison, when Eden Studios had there $5/5-day sale, they got there stuff out in record time, and when I had one slight snafu with the order, they went above and beyond to correct it... Eden will definately get my money in the future, whereas Paizo will most likely not)

[DarkBlade]

I feel silly for not having mentioned it to Tadhg.. when I was frustrated tonight at the cancellation, he reminded me about The Gryphon downtown. It's more used bookstore than gameshop and I'd forgotten about it. They -may- have been participating in the sale, or not... bwar. However, it's long over now.

I'm prepping a rather displeased email to send off to Paizo's customer service.

[Perry Holley]

Want to get an early start on publishing 4th ed. compatible material? It'll only cost you five grand (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080108a).

Necromance Games has already agreed to pay up. (http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3981219&postcount=16)

[moebius]

The most fun that I've had playing D&D in a long time was while playing the Temple of Elemental Evil PC game. It was an excellent conversion of a big first edition AD&D adventure, only updated to the 3.5 rules edition. D&D is pretty cool when the computer can make all the tedious calculations about encumbrance, initiative, to hit rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and especially attacks of opportunity.

Playing 3.5, or really any edition of D&D, as a tabletop RPG is a lumbering exercise in rules-speak.The rules usually destroy any atmosphere that the DM is trying to establish.

I've been part of a Return to the ToEE tabletop game for six months now, and it's a lot of fun.

I feel you on the accounting, though...we're at the point where number crunching takes up so much of the game that it becomes a burden.

For the programmers out there...I've been making noises in game about how useful a PDA application would be that calculates your to Hit, AC and saving throws in certain situations...keeps track of all your modifiers and the conditions in effect.


I will have no part of 3.5, nor will the groups I usually play with, other than to test run 4.0. There's just too much out there in 3.5, and I don't see enough significant problems in 3.X to make me want to switch over, whereas 3.X was a significant improvement over 2nd Edition.

[Kage Kisaragi]

I'm pretty much a regular over at the WotC Message boards but I was wondering what do you guys think about the new edition? Are there any table top players on these forums? How excited about it are you?

[GozertheGozarian]

I say nay, just as I said nay to 3 and 3.5.

[macul]

Absolutely not.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

Change is good. If one doesn't like the changes, then they can still play whatever edition they can prefer.

[Perry Holley]

If I do pick it up,it will be after a) I've been able to get enough feedback from other gamers to see if I want to pick it up, and b) wait until the 2nd printing, so that they will have hopefully corrected the various errors that inevitably crop up in their first printings.

From what I've read, there are some of the technical ideas I like (i.e. "Second Wind"), and the default approach ("Points of Light") has its appeal, but 4e still sounds rules-wise that it will be, much like 3.x, a little to overly-fiddly for my personal gaming tastes.

[GozertheGozarian]

Change is good. If one doesn't like the changes, then they can still play whatever edition they can prefer.
I still play 1st ed, slightly modded to for non weapon proficiencies.

[Jmacq1]

If I do pick it up,it will be after a) I've been able to get enough feedback from other gamers to see if I want to pick it up, and b) wait until the 2nd printing, so that they will have hopefully corrected the various errors that inevitably crop up in their first printings.

From what I've read, there are some of the technical ideas I like (i.e. "Second Wind"), and the default approach ("Points of Light") has its appeal, but 4e still sounds rules-wise that it will be, much like 3.x, a little to overly-fiddly for my personal gaming tastes.

Sounds about like my take on it. I'll wait for feedback and an errata'ed printing (or a 4.5 edition) before I'll consider buying in. I've got waaaay too much 3.5 stuff to try to change over full-tilt. Even if I have friends that seem highly enthused about 4th Edition.

[Jared H.]

Nay. I'll be sticking to 3.5, Burning Wheel, and Lacuna instead.

[moebius]

If I'm still playing D&D in 2010, I'll think about switching to 4.X. Enjoying 3.5 too much now (except for the Grapple rules).

[Jared H.]

If I'm still playing D&D in 2010, I'll think about switching to 4.X. Enjoying 3.5 too much now (except for the Grapple rules).

Rules Compendium, dude. Makes it soooo much easier to follow.

[G. Wayne]

Not too excited. 4.5 Sounds like the way to go. Then again, there *could* be some absolutely stellar mechanic in there I don't know about.

I like 3.5, and I still have about 15 or so prestige classes I'd like to try out, y'know, ever. And there's all kinds of goodness in the Players Handbook 2 as well.

[Arvandor]

I haven't played sinced 2nd edition, but I like the sound of the 4e from what I've read online (particularly the Points of Light idea and the changes to the Realms). I think I might start up again, or at least buy a few books and see what they're like.

It's so weird. Everything the veterans are complaining about on message boards sounds damn cool to me.

[Jared H.]

Not too excited. 4.5 Sounds like the way to go. Then again, there *could* be some absolutely stellar mechanic in there I don't know about.

I like 3.5, and I still have about 15 or so prestige classes I'd like to try out, y'know, ever. And there's all kinds of goodness in the Players Handbook 2 as well.

Beguilers, dude. Like Warmages without the suck.

[Gezora]

No need to fix what ain't broken.

WOTC needs more money, is all.

And for our sake, I hope 4.0 in their New Coke.

[Joe Grendel]

I say yay. The fluff stuff gets ignored in favor of the homebrew anyway, and a lot of the mechanical stuff they're taking on has been a problem since the beginning.

I ran a game with Joe Rice and some others here through a level 2 dungeon (Goodman Games' wonderful Dragonfiend Pact) and the spellcaster heavy group was camping to recover spells practically in every other room.

One shouldn't have to do that, or to form a cookie-cutter group, to be viable.

Now that Necromancer Games, Goodman Games and probably Paizo are in, I'm pretty much committed, although my current group (including Mr. Rice) are not all sold on it, so I may end up running both systems in different games.

[Perry Holley]

Annnnnnnd... thread merge!

[moebius]

I ran a game with Joe Rice and some others here through a level 2 dungeon (Goodman Games' wonderful Dragonfiend Pact) and the spellcaster heavy group was camping to recover spells practically in every other room.


I do respect unorthodox groups, but running a spellcaster-heavy group at early levels is like going into a battle with just artillery pieces. The optimal army has infantry, scouts, armor and artillery. You can take some of these pieces away, but you have to be a lot smarter in your approach if you do.

My current high-level campaign has no Rogue, and I keep telling the other players to 1) expect casualties and 2) expect a drop-off in treasure, since we're now too afraid to search rooms for treasure, and not nearly as good as we used to be.

I do like 4.X's approach to making sure you "always have something in your pocket", but I feel like they've already been working toward that with Reserve Feats, ToB Maneuvers and other tomfoolery.

[Joe Grendel]

Well, the campaign I'm running is heavy on the roleplaying, and light on the tactical stuff, not to mention it was originally eleven player characters that split into two when one half went on the run from the law. No one said "OK, let's have a cleric get in trouble with the law, and have one wizard stay on the good guy team." It would have made things easier, but that would have taken a whole lot of metagaming, which these guys just don't want to do.

[lonewolf23k]

I've already spent over $200 on 3rd and 3.5th edition books that are now going obsolete, and that I stopped playing with anyways.. If Wizards of the Coast think they can bilk me into spending more cash on their new line of gamebooks, they're crazy.

I'm a full-time GURPS player now.

[Jmacq1]

Hasn't GURPS done like two or three editions in the last ten years, too?

[Perry Holley]

Hasn't GURPS done like two or three editions in the last ten years, too?GURPS 3rd edition came out in 1988. GURPS 4th edition was released in the 2004. That's a 16 year difference, so that's hardly comparable to what's going on with D&D.

If anything, before the release of GURPS 4th edition, most GURPS fans were complaining that SJG was taking too long in releasing a new edition.

[Joe Grendel]

If Wizards of the Coast think they can bilk me into spending more cash on their new line of gamebooks, they're crazy.
Given that, mechanically, 4E seems to be a pretty big improvement on the overly fiddly 3E (although I concede a GURPS fan might feel 3E isn't particularly fiddly at all), I don't think this can be characterized as bilking so much as creating a product not aimed at you.

[Jmacq1]

GURPS 3rd edition came out in 1988. GURPS 4th edition was released in the 2004. That's a 16 year difference, so that's hardly comparable to what's going on with D&D.

If anything, before the release of GURPS 4th edition, most GURPS fans were complaining that SJG was taking too long in releasing a new edition.

Ahh, my mistake. I must've just been thinking of/seeing new printings or something.

[Monkey Boy]

I'm pretty much a regular over at the WotC Message boards but I was wondering what do you guys think about the new edition? Are there any table top players on these forums? How excited about it are you?

I'm interested in trying out 4th edition. A few of my friends and I have already planed on having a go at it once its released.

[Endless Flight]

I'm playing Basic/Expert/Rules Cyclopedia D&D, so I'm not part of the target audience. I'll take a look at the core books when they come out, just for the hell of it.

[Perry Holley]

Some of you might remember Paizo as the publishers of Dragon and Dungeon magazines in the last few years, before WOTC pulled the rug out from under them, as well as the publisher of the Pathfinder series of adventure modules. Well, with D&D 4.0 around the corner, instead of hanging their future publishings off of 4th ed., Paizo has opted for a different tack... they're publishing their own RPG system, essentially a modified version of the 3.5 rules. It's officially going to be called the Pathfinder RPG, but it's already unofficially known as D&D 3.75. :) The "alpha playtest" is already available as a free PDF download, for those who are curious:

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG

I wonder how many other d20 publishers will opt not to upgrade to 4th edition, but instead work off of modified versions of the 3.5 SRD?

[Jmacq1]

I wonder how many other d20 publishers will opt not to upgrade to 4th edition, but instead work off of modified versions of the 3.5 SRD?

Quite a few, considering they have to pay to "upgrade" to 4th Edition, whereas in 3.5 they could produce stuff in that ruleset for free.

It's probably not a huge amount, but WotC is charging a licensing fee for 4th Edition. I suspect many of the smaller game publishers will not be able to afford/won't want to shell out for that "honor."

But a lot of those companies are going to have to find a new shtick or shrivel up after the supply of 3.5 PHBs/DMGs/etc... runs out. (I'm not talking about the publishers that tend to have their own "d20-based" systems, but rather those that just tend to crank out modules and "add on" books with the 3.5 ruleset).

And maybe that's not a bad thing, entirely. There's a tremendous glut of OGL product out there. Trimming some of the fat probably won't hurt.

[Perry Holley]

Quite a few, considering they have to pay to "upgrade" to 4th Edition, whereas in 3.5 they could produce stuff in that ruleset for free.Well, technically, the $5000 licensing fee gives a five month "head-start" for publishing OGL stuff for 4th ed... if you pay the fee, you can publish OGL product starting on Aug 1 2008; those who don't pay can start publishing OGL material starting Jan 1 2009.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080108a

[Jmacq1]

Well, technically, the $5000 licensing fee gives a five month "head-start" for publishing OGL stuff for 4th ed... if you pay the fee, you can publish OGL product starting on Aug 1 2008; those who don't pay can start publishing OGL material starting Jan 1 2009.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080108a


Huh, I didn't know that.

So there is going to be an OGL for 4th Edition. That...surprises me, since I figured 4th Edition was WotC's means of getting away from fuelling their own competition.

[mrmike65]

[/QUOTE] Which is what seems funny about all this to me: Why put out a 4th edition when there's such a massive amount of product available for 3.5, and you can still make money off of your back catalog of products for that edition?

There just doesn't seem to be any need for a 4th edition right now. Which is why I'm kinda taking this with a grain of salt until an official announcement is made.[/QUOTE]

I've been studying this situation and have come up with a theory. I believe the impetus for the arrival of 4th ed. has been the change in ownership of WOC, Hasbro. It seems to me that 3E was brought designed to "fix" 2E It's funny though that I am unable to find anyone that will say 2E needed "fixing". This leads me to believe that "someone" decided that since 2E was so successful, they needed to change the system in order to push new products.

Let take a moment and give up my gaming credentials. I began playing in 1979 with the boxed Basic edition, then moved to AD&D 1st Ed. Shortly into that I went into the Army and lost touch with D&D until just before 3.0 came out. Unfortunately, I missed 2E, except for two whole sessions. I moved to 3.0 and in the last few months to 3.5

Given the amount if time that I played 2E, I found it confusing and cumbersome. I liked 3E basically because the core mechanic was so simple. No charts, no conversions - just roll a D20, add your bonus for that action, and compare it to a target number. What could be easier? In my mind, D&D was fixed with 3.0

Then somewhere along the line, a change was made and someone failed thier Ethics save. A "gift" was given to the world in the form of the Open Game Liscense, effectively giving anyone who could put 10 words together the opportunity to design a D20 game or game accessory. I believe the real reason behind this "generosity" was to flood the gaming market and overwhelm the D&D community. Oh sure, a LOT of really good d20 stuff hit the shelves and websites. No doubt about it. But think about it, compared to the amount of material sold for 2E, how much 3E/d20 material was WOC profitting from? Not nearly enough.

Enter Hasbo. Enter mainstream gaming. Enter the shift from "roleplaying" to "gaming".

The goal was to create a commercial gaming environment that would streamline global sales. A look at 4E will reveal players using "warbands" instead of characters, playing in tournament-style encounters, rather than adventures, and having access to powergaming skills, feats and class abilities. A classy move back to wargaming - the very roots of D&D. Folks, this is a move back not forward.

What made all this possible was the fact that the new generation of players were being pulled from thier video games. The market was ripe with players who had short attention spans and were raised on instant gratification. The gaming industry was competing with electronic entertainment, they thought they needed to speed things up in order to increase sales.

So, 3E was released to "fix" D&D. It was a modest move to regain market viability. I can accept that. Then someone got greedy and the plan for 4E was developed. But how do you fix a "fix"? Answer: break it. So came the OGL and the flood of d20 material into the world. This was just setting the stage. The real "hammer" was 3.5. This was the instrument of destruction. It threw D&D off-balance and made it too powerful. Like moving from smoking pot to smoking crack. Add the RPGA - a nation-wide gaming forum centered around tournament-style gaming, with national rankings for DM & players - and the stage was set for 4E

"4E" - fast, furious & powerful. "4E" - impersonal, unimaginative. Everything your character can do is in the books. The rule system just doesn't support creative solutions and custom actions. Oh, it doesn't prohbit them, it just doesn't give any room for them. It's like a video game on paper. and it kills the imagination and free will.

I, for one, will never purchase or use 4E materials. I'm even planning to remove 3.5 materials from my table. I don't need them and if you prefer "roleplaying" to "gaming" you don't need them either. The Prestige Class was the scalpel that made the first inscision to separate you from your imagination. They made it seem that you couldn't customize your character without them. "why work at using your imagination when you can use our handy-dandy Prestige Classes?" = "why worry about your lousy life when you can just smoke some of this and get high".

Now, if you prefer "gaming" to "roleplaying" , then I guess that's your choice. I'm sure it will be fun. Just remember to enjoy the high life while it lasts.

Ok, I've thrown the gauntlet, so let's hear your thoughts on all this :o)

[Jmacq1]

Did you get an advance copy of 4E or something?

And of course, the very easy answer for 90 percent of your complaints is: Not all imaginations are created equal.

[mrmike65]

No, but all the preview publications they've been putting out give a pretty good view of what's to come.



Did you get an advance copy of 4E or something?

And of course, the very easy answer for 90 percent of your complaints is: Not all imaginations are created equal.

[sHayden]

I don't "Roleplay"
I'm one of those odd people who buys sourcebooks and just reads them for the fun of it.
But what is being done with 4E sounds wrong. Of course a company would believe they need to compete with electronic media but there is such a thing as a niche market. Plus, make your own electronic media to compete on that front, and keep your original product true.

[Jmacq1]

I dunno. D&D has never (to me) really been all that much about "roleplaying" unless your DM and fellow players make it so. I don't imagine 4E will be any different on that score.

If you want to "role play" you can do it with virtually any ruleset, because most of the actual role-playing takes place in the scenes that aren't well-covered by most rulesets, or at least the spaces in-between the fight scenes.

[mrmike65]

I dunno. D&D has never (to me) really been all that much about "roleplaying" unless your DM and fellow players make it so. I don't imagine 4E will be any different on that score.

If you want to "role play" you can do it with virtually any ruleset, because most of the actual role-playing takes place in the scenes that aren't well-covered by most rulesets, or at least the spaces in-between the fight scenes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
True, you can roleplay with virtually any ruleset. The problem is that the recent evolution of D&D moves it further away from being a system that you can roleplay with. D&D has thrived for so many years for the very reason that it has engaged and encouraged the imagination of thousands of players. I feel there is an obligation to uphold that ideal and legacy.

Granted the combat scenes can be some of the more exciting parts of an adventure, but they do not make up the whole adventure. The scenes between the combats are vital to supporting the glitz. Consider the scene where Frodo meets Galadriel at the fountain of scrying... or where Boromir tries to persuade Frodo to give him the ring... or the one in the Prancing Pony where Frodo ends up disappearing in front of a whole tavern full of people... or when Merry and Pippen meet the Treebeard. Take all the non-combat scenes from the three Lord of the Rings movies and what do you have left? Really cool battles with little substance or relevance.

The evolution of D&D has moved away from supporting the whole adventure and focuses on the glitz. In doing so, there is no room for the roleplaying scenes that tie the adventure together. In it's rush to retain commercial longevity, Wizards fails to provide an environment that allows the veteran players the space to teach the new generation about roleplaying.

[Perry Holley]

Granted the combat scenes can be some of the more exciting parts of an adventure, but they do not make up the whole adventure. The scenes between the combats are vital to supporting the glitz. Consider the scene where Frodo meets Galadriel at the fountain of scrying... or where Boromir tries to persuade Frodo to give him the ring... or the one in the Prancing Pony where Frodo ends up disappearing in front of a whole tavern full of people... or when Merry and Pippen meet the Treebeard. Take all the non-combat scenes from the three Lord of the Rings movies and what do you have left? Really cool battles with little substance or relevance.Out of curiousity, how would the new ruleset prevent or discourage players from playing out the type of scenes that you describe?

[Jmacq1]

Out of curiousity, how would the new ruleset prevent or discourage players from playing out the type of scenes that you describe?

Exactly.....

D&D has pretty much always been a "fantasy combat game" with a few tidbits thrown in for things outside of combat (Alignments, some spells, skill listings).

Doesn't matter which edition, it all basically boils down to: "Here's the rules for how to fight, and some other stuff for crawling through dungeons and whatnot, and some environmental effects and stuff. Oh, and here's the skill listings/Non-Weapon Proficiencies for stuff they can do besides fight."

As I said, the "role playing" comes between DM and players. It's not really an explicit function of the rules (though you can role-play within those rules). Unless there's some explicit rule in D&D 4th Edition that says "You can't do anything but run battle scenes with this game" (Which I highly doubt), there's absolutely nothing in the new edition of D&D that detracts from role-playing. No more so than there was in any other edition.

[DungeonmasterJim]

I played some 4th ed scenarios at a gaming con this past March and mostly I liked what I saw of 4th ed. Saving throws are kind of weird since you have a 50/50 chance of making them. It was more about hitting a Fortitude armor class by your opponent for lack of a better term.

I liked that anyone can 'second wind' and get some hit points back so that clerics don't have to be band-aids or possibly totally screw the party over.

You start off with a lot more hitpoints and combat skills at first level but it seemed like hits were easy to come by. If I didn't know better it seemed like over all 150 points of damage had been dealt by everyone altogether in a low level combat. I wasn't use to that at all.

I couldn't determine it from the scenarios but it seems like halflings are now normally around 4 feet tall or something like that from the rumor mill. I find that very disappointing. But like I said, I couldn't really tell from the preview play.

I do find rules changes to be very annoying and everyone has their own interpetation and that will always cause trouble in games like D&D. The biggest thing I'm liking about 4th ed is that Forgotten Realms will be the base universe for it. I always found Forgotten Realms more enjoyable a setting than Greyhawk but that's just my opinion.

I'm hoping to get a good does of 4th ed at Dragon Con this year.

DM Jim

[Jmacq1]

Heh, yeah, I know very few people that really use Greyhawk as a campaign setting, even in 3.0/3.5 edition.

Forgotten Realms has just had so much more stuff published for it and been fleshed out so much more deeply that it makes sense to make it the default setting.

Though I'm almost surprised they didn't go with Eberron, as hard as they've pushed that particular setting.

[Perry Holley]

It's not that certain rulesets can't be more encouraging of role-play than others. But even the most rule-crunchy, combat-intensive ruleset can be still be used for lots of roleplay if the players and GM are so inclined, and systems that are supposedly inclined to encourage heavy roleplay can still be used for nothing more than a hackfest, if that's what a gaming group wants to use it for.

As one person on another gaming forum who played with Gygax before the OD&D rules were published once commented (paraphrasing), "We didn't have rules for roleplaying. We just did it."

There's a lot of stuff I've seen about 4E that looks like it won't appeal to me, but the lack of rules concerning PC's emotional struggles and deep multi-hour non-combat discussions with NPCs isn't a factor for me.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

I don't get the whole "D&D is downplaying roleplaying" thing. The rulebooks contain mostly rules for combat and combat-related mechanics. And that's what they SHOULD contain. You don't need many rules for non-combat situations. And the D20 system makes things extremely easy to just make up rules on the fly for any situation. 3rd Edition D&D is awesome because the rules are simple yet flexible and can be applied to pretty much any kind of action you want to do, in or out of combat. As long as 4th edition keeps this(and it looks like it will), then I've got no beef with it.

[Perry Holley]

Heh heh heh...

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05062008.shtml

[Jared H.]

Screw 4.0, I'm gonna go with Pathfinder.

I mean, seriously WotC, toggles? Why do you want to make this WoW?

[Jmacq1]

Screw 4.0, I'm gonna go with Pathfinder.

I mean, seriously WotC, toggles? Why do you want to make this WoW?

Oh, I dunno...probably because WoW has probably made as much money in the last few years as D&D has made across its entire existence? :tongue:

(I have no idea if that's true, but I do know WoW has made a crapload of money).

[Jared H.]

Oh, I dunno...probably because WoW has probably made as much money in the last few years as D&D has made across its entire existence? :tongue:

(I have no idea if that's true, but I do know WoW has made a crapload of money).

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a money thing.

For me, the mistakes they're making in 4.0 are legion:

1) Firing all the 3.0 and 4.0 people(which is why Monte Cook and Bruce Cordell are headed to Pathfinder! Ha!).

2) Telling us to throw out all the old books(while Pathfinder doesn't invalidate a single one).

3) Keeping half of the content of their books online, and charging a monthly fee for it.

4) Letting old properties slide(Fire Eye instead of Beholder, now. WotC let it slide. Good news is, Pathfinder picked it up).

5) Throwing out Greyhawk.

6) Making the game non-stop combat, and apeing WoW at every turn(look at the art, even! It's almost identical!)

7) Trying to kill the OGL(the worst of the offenses, in my opinion).

Yeah, I'm not gonna bother with 4.0 at all.

[Jmacq1]

Uhm, pretty sure there's still an OGL in place for 4.0, at least according to earlier posters.

[Alex]

Screw 4.0, I'm gonna go with Pathfinder.

I mean, seriously WotC, toggles? Why do you want to make this WoW?

Since im a big WoW guy, and a lot of people in my guild are current or former D and D people, i can confirm that theres little to no buzz around the new D and D rule set. I've never been able to get into the game myself, as i have never really met anyone offline who plays it, and you kinda need other people to play it, but lets not kid around. WoW is about grinding and getting gear, D and D is about interacting with other people, no matter how much they change it or how self sustaining they make the characters you can create, it's not going to bring in the same people.

And as i see it, thats a huge flaw in the idea of trying to make a pen and paper rpg and turning it into some kind of mmoish thing. All they seem to be doing is alienating some current people who enjoy D and D, and they aren't really doing anything that's going to add people to it. We don't roleplay in WoW for craps sake, we click buttons.

[Jmacq1]

Well yeah....regardless of what happens with 4.0 and its' ruleset and what it contains, I'm pretty sure most D&D players were of the mind that it was an unnecessary revision in the first place (myself included, even if I plan on checking the new system out).

[Jared H.]

Uhm, pretty sure there's still an OGL in place for 4.0, at least according to earlier posters.

Except that one has to pay $5000 for it.

[Jmacq1]

Except that one has to pay $5000 for it.

No, that was what I thought, too, but if you look several posts up, it appears that the $5000 dollar fee was only for those developers that wanted a five month "head start" on creating 4.0 material (thus allowing them to have product on shelves shortly after the new rulebooks are released). Once the game is released it appears that the regular OGL rules go into effect on January 1st, 2009.

EDIT: Here's the quote -

Well, technically, the $5000 licensing fee gives a five month "head-start" for publishing OGL stuff for 4th ed... if you pay the fee, you can publish OGL product starting on Aug 1 2008; those who don't pay can start publishing OGL material starting Jan 1 2009.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080108a

Somehow....I expect a whole lotta OGL 4.0 stuff will be hitting in January 2009......

[Jared H.]

No, that was what I thought, too, but if you look several posts up, it appears that the $5000 dollar fee was only for those developers that wanted a five month "head start" on creating 4.0 material (thus allowing them to have product on shelves shortly after the new rulebooks are released). Once the game is released it appears that the regular OGL rules go into effect on January 1st, 2009.

EDIT: Here's the quote -



Somehow....I expect a whole lotta OGL 4.0 stuff will be hitting in January 2009......

Well, huh. Seems like I was mistaken. Thanks for pointing that out.

Could anyone also explain to me what exactly is happening to the d20 liscense? Is it still going away for good on June 6th?

[Perry Holley]

I don't have a link handy, but I *think* the 5K fee was later waived.

I'll see if I can find something to verify that.

[Jmacq1]

Well, huh. Seems like I was mistaken. Thanks for pointing that out.

Could anyone also explain to me what exactly is happening to the d20 liscense? Is it still going away for good on June 6th?

I thought the d20 license was good forever. Or was that just OGL?


Biggest problem being that all those publishers that relied on "you must have the D&D 3/3.5 Edition Player's Handbook to use this product" are kinda out of luck.

But presumably, those folks that basically produced complete rulesets in their books should be fine, if they wanted to keep using the old system.

[Kage Kisaragi]

Sounds like a lot of you are either jaded, misinformed, or just plain crazy. Okay, you want to continue playing 3.x because you believe it is the roxxors and allows me to do everything I could ever imagine. Let's examine that everything you can ever imagine aspect first.

Let's look at all the problems with 3.x and thus in comparison Pathfinder as it will try to continue on by building off of 3.x. :rolleyes:

1.) 50+ base classes over 400+ PrCs.. now how many of each of those were entirely original or new concepts? ... believe it or not not even 20% I think. This is not a plus people its a crazy shame, a sick sad joke on that idea that YOU the player can't even imagine outside of a picture and some fluffy words that another character could be conceptually be built using a pre-existing class with different or new options. So much for the people who claimed that this edition didn't try to influence you're role playing... They influencing you're role playing from day one.

4e's spin. The designer told us out right that the classes are mere skeletons to help you flush out the type of character you want to build/play. Okay you wanna be a Swashbuckler, then we have a mobile finesse melee type, take the Rogue and pick the powers you think best fit this idea, grab some of the feats that help flush out this idea some more and whala at first level you are the Swashbuckling adventurer. Yes thats right, they put the character concepts back in our hands.

2.) 3e had this little gimmick of being unbalanced between the classes known as the power creep. Thats right, new classes could be made in total disregard of what classes already existed or even if they were fair classes in comparison to the staples. (staples being the ones in the core rule books.) Meaning that if you didn't buy the latest books while others in your group did you were essentially playing weaker character. Whether it class, feats, prestige classes, or spells so long as you kept up with the books you were pretty much promised to be stronger than someone who didn't.

4e approach. Design the classes so that all classes are not so much as restricted by what was released upon the launch of this edition but rather by what is in circulation at each gaming table. What I mean is the classes in 4e will be open enough that its what powers you choose for your character class that will determine your over all effectiveness, so that when and if newer material comes out if you so choose you can place your older powers with whatever newer ones that are presented in the newest book. So that every class remains a viable option for a fun and enjoyable character no matter what new classes come along later on down the line.

3.) Let's talk about skills for second. Does remember how ridiculous 3e skill system was? Every class had practically 6 or more skills and yet half of those skills never got used, or if you needed to use them you probably didn't have enough skill points to invest in them in the first place. Why should a player have to metagame what skills are gonna be needed for a campaign? Isn't the character suppose to be special amongst mortal people, shouldn't his skill set be I don't know all encompassing when it comes to what his role/archtypical character is? I would think so, how many times did Merlin fumble on his decipher script check just because he had to study knowledge nature, arcana, religion, history, geography and spellcraft more so.Yeah probably never. Why is it such a system to which fans believed allows for more realistic actions in game the exact opposite was true. By 9th lv you had Rogues with balance checks so high they could walk across a inch wide string on a rainy day 100ft in the air without so much as missing a step. 9th lv... not even near the end of his career yet but he's doing things no normal human could do, but people claim its non as animeish. Also why were there so many skills? in 3.5 they condensed some, and in 4.0 they condensed the rest to.

4e. Fix the skill system so that skills are easier to track, make skill list smaller while increasing the effects of those skills. Skills now actually mean something. A wizard using a Arcana check can now identify magic item properties and how they work, you know it only makes sense since he you know is supposed to have studied magical things. Classes will see the modifiers for skills go up ever even level, while some skills which the class chose to be trained in will have a bonus that represents said training. Not to mention potentially purchasing trained status with a skills through a feat.

I'll continue with this pros and cons between 3e and 4e when I get some sleep, its 3am and I got off of work not to long ago and could use some sleep.

[Jmacq1]

Of course, the irony of all that breakdown is that most of the "flaws" you list in 3e, and also the "fixes" in 4e were designed with the same thoughts in mind:

"Let's sell more books!"

Seriously, as I stated earlier (and was pretty much ignored): Not all imaginations are created equal. Sure, plenty of people could simply make a Rogue or a Fighter/Rogue or a Rogue/Anything into an "assassin" but some people like a little more definition. Further, no one's forcing anybody to use the prestige classes. If you have a different view, make the different character. Beyond that, for all the complaining about "too many prestige classes!" it's rather clear that prestige classes were a big selling point...in other words, people liked them. Thus, it's no longer a flaw to the majority of the people that were buying the books, but rather it's something they wanted more of.

Power Creep: Sure it happened, but last time I checked it was the DM who was the arbiter of what is and isn't allowed in the campaign. I owned a good chunk of the WotC 3/3.5 edition material, which meant I had a lot of books the other players in my group didn't. However the DM always made it perfectly clear which books were "permissible" and which weren't, and quite frankly, even if they didn't own the book how were they prevented from using it? First off, it's not usually a player vs. player game (or at least not intended as such), and secondly...I don't think most people are so obsessive about their books that they won't let the other players in their gaming group look at them....

None of this is meant to be a knock on 4th Edition, as I fully intend to "give it a shot" but really I've found that 99 percent of what most people decry as "flaws" in almost any tabletop RPG can be solved by a halfway decent DM who actually maintains some modicum of control over his game, and good communication between the players and the players and the DM.

[Jared H.]

Sounds like a lot of you are either jaded, misinformed, or just plain crazy. Okay, you want to continue playing 3.x because you believe it is the roxxors and allows me to do everything I could ever imagine. Let's examine that everything you can ever imagine aspect first.

Let's look at all the problems with 3.x and thus in comparison Pathfinder as it will try to continue on by building off of 3.x. :rolleyes:

1.) 50+ base classes over 400+ PrCs.. now how many of each of those were entirely original or new concepts? ... believe it or not not even 20% I think. This is not a plus people its a crazy shame, a sick sad joke on that idea that YOU the player can't even imagine outside of a picture and some fluffy words that another character could be conceptually be built using a pre-existing class with different or new options. So much for the people who claimed that this edition didn't try to influence you're role playing... They influencing you're role playing from day one.

4e's spin. The designer told us out right that the classes are mere skeletons to help you flush out the type of character you want to build/play. Okay you wanna be a Swashbuckler, then we have a mobile finesse melee type, take the Rogue and pick the powers you think best fit this idea, grab some of the feats that help flush out this idea some more and whala at first level you are the Swashbuckling adventurer. Yes thats right, they put the character concepts back in our hands.


Dude, I spend a lot of time on the character optimization board sover at WotC. I build characters within the rules that make DMs cry for fun. I also once created what basically amounted to a team of X-men using the rulebooks. If you're clever enough, one can make any type of character they'd like within the rules.


2.) 3e had this little gimmick of being unbalanced between the classes known as the power creep. Thats right, new classes could be made in total disregard of what classes already existed or even if they were fair classes in comparison to the staples. (staples being the ones in the core rule books.) Meaning that if you didn't buy the latest books while others in your group did you were essentially playing weaker character. Whether it class, feats, prestige classes, or spells so long as you kept up with the books you were pretty much promised to be stronger than someone who didn't.

4e approach. Design the classes so that all classes are not so much as restricted by what was released upon the launch of this edition but rather by what is in circulation at each gaming table. What I mean is the classes in 4e will be open enough that its what powers you choose for your character class that will determine your over all effectiveness, so that when and if newer material comes out if you so choose you can place your older powers with whatever newer ones that are presented in the newest book. So that every class remains a viable option for a fun and enjoyable character no matter what new classes come along later on down the line.


This is not true. There is no expanded class(and only one PrC that I can think of, and even that requires one to be a Druid first) that is more powerful than a straight Druid on the power scale. None.


3.) Let's talk about skills for second. Does remember how ridiculous 3e skill system was? Every class had practically 6 or more skills and yet half of those skills never got used, or if you needed to use them you probably didn't have enough skill points to invest in them in the first place. Why should a player have to metagame what skills are gonna be needed for a campaign? Isn't the character suppose to be special amongst mortal people, shouldn't his skill set be I don't know all encompassing when it comes to what his role/archtypical character is? I would think so, how many times did Merlin fumble on his decipher script check just because he had to study knowledge nature, arcana, religion, history, geography and spellcraft more so.Yeah probably never. Why is it such a system to which fans believed allows for more realistic actions in game the exact opposite was true. By 9th lv you had Rogues with balance checks so high they could walk across a inch wide string on a rainy day 100ft in the air without so much as missing a step. 9th lv... not even near the end of his career yet but he's doing things no normal human could do, but people claim its non as animeish. Also why were there so many skills? in 3.5 they condensed some, and in 4.0 they condensed the rest to.

4e. Fix the skill system so that skills are easier to track, make skill list smaller while increasing the effects of those skills. Skills now actually mean something. A wizard using a Arcana check can now identify magic item properties and how they work, you know it only makes sense since he you know is supposed to have studied magical things. Classes will see the modifiers for skills go up ever even level, while some skills which the class chose to be trained in will have a bonus that represents said training. Not to mention potentially purchasing trained status with a skills through a feat.

Except in 4th edition, it's as if every skill can do what every other skill can. One can now apparently use knowledge checks instead of physical checks(how does knowing stuff about a tree automatically make you able to climb it?), etc.

I'll continue with this pros and cons between 3e and 4e when I get some sleep, its 3am and I got off of work not to long ago and could use some sleep.


Seriously, don't bother. The fact remains that I know the 3.5 system, like the 3.5 system, and have paid a lot of money for book in the 3.5 system. I'm not going to abandon it for a tabletop WoW game.

[Kage Kisaragi]

This goes right back to the whole misinformation thing.

One some skills were subsumed into other skills just like how some 3.0 skills were subsumed by some 3.5 skills. However there is nothing in the 4e skills that even remotely comes close to what you stated Jared. There is not knowledge skill that allows you to climb a tree, I think you've got it backwards that how 3.5 worked. Where because you studied jumping with x amount of points you automatically get a bonus of +x to tumbling. The fact that they have been rolled into one package under acrobatics along with balance is the best thing you could hope for since all three skills have to deal with exceptionally fine movement in terms of D&D.

To Jmacq1, the idea of selling more books did not get invented with 4e, in fact it was refined with 3e. However I will spare the gross details of how 3e abused the players by basically screwing them if they didn't buy the latest and greatest new supplement for D&D (example all the various fixes to fighters and martial type characters in the ToB, PHB2, Complete Warrior, ect ect) I think talked about that enough. So I'll just laminate more on the fact that again unlike 3e you can play the game and not feel like you aren't gimping yourself by just using the core books. 4e will focus more on adventures with its supplements which almost guarantees that it will produce more adventurers that player supplements.

No More Sub Systems:
A breath of fresh air finally. All classes will follow the same system, no psionics as power points, no tomb and battle as maneuvers, no incarnum as 24 hour modifiers, no spell slot system (not entirely anyway), no warlock of everything at will system (though it was a fair testing ground.) There will be one system to which all classes are structured around.

little back ground info, I spent the better part of 2002 or so and on at the WotC message boards, yes and I frequented the Optimization Boards quiet often, happily discovering at pointing out the advantage of several different feat combinations that made for potent abuse of a already wonky system.

Let's talk about character concept because is largely the current kicker for fence sitters and nay sayers.

In 3e you could just jump from class to class and people saw this as a step forward in making multiclassing more viable when it was in fact just the opposite. When you multiclassed in 3e, every class level you took that wasn't from your first class meant that that was one from the top of that class that you lost access to. It meant that you bailed out on in some cases the best abilities in that class. This effect only continues for every class level not from your original class, it also means the the same for any 2nd or 3rd or fourth class you take as well and for what? Yes you wanted to try and make a type of character that wasn't directly given to you using the core books and its classes/feats, but more than not you are now a unplayable character who is severely underpowered in comparisons to the threats you were expected to be able to handle. Don't even think of trying to make a Fighter/Mage using only the core books.. You had to collect practically every book that mentioned the word arcane in it and hope that each one of them had a new 10lv prestige class or 5 lv one, that gave both spellcaster and fighter like traits. Even then it wasn't guaranteed that the end result was worth it because a lot of the time said builds required that when combat start you spend 2 or 3 rounds buffing yourself which contributed nothing to the parties desire to defeat the monster. Is this cooperation? Heck no.

4e's approach, make the classes function as the primary base for all developments in the characters future. Then if said character wants to dabble into another class allow them to do so at a minimal cost of expending some feats (by which you get plenty of in 4e no matter what your class is.) This broke down to mean that by 10th lv if you took all the related feats, 4 in total. You would have 1 encounter power, 1 utility power, and 1 daily power from another class, with the addition of 1 class feature that can only be used once per encounter. This allowing to sample the idea you came up with but not beholding you to it should you decide that it wasn't the best idea for your concept and thus allowing you to change it if not drop it all together. However should you not like it your character isn't automatically the suck as such was the case if you perhaps decided to go wizard 6 levels then decided that you thought maybe taking a level or more of barbarian would be beneficial. Not only that but after 10th lv you have the option of taking in place of a Paragon Path a actual 2nd class. Thats right, you can now take levels from the actual class you choose to dabble into earlier on and gain the full class features of that class thus improving the powers that you already had from it.

So now you have a System where if you wanted to make the typical elven magic swordsman, you can by simply being a fighter who dabbles into wizardary and perhaps even takes wizard at some higher levels and still be totally competent at your role of defender. Where as the Human Wizard who decided to gain a little fighter grit can do so without you both becoming mechanically the same character.

Lastly how many classes do you really need to combine to execute one concept. Be careful how you answer this because it can very much paint a bad picture about your play style. The line between dipping so as to achieve a character concept and the line between dipping for nothing more than power gains is kind of blurry.

[Jmacq1]

To Jmacq1, the idea of selling more books did not get invented with 4e, in fact it was refined with 3e. However I will spare the gross details of how 3e abused the players by basically screwing them if they didn't buy the latest and greatest new supplement for D&D (example all the various fixes to fighters and martial type characters in the ToB, PHB2, Complete Warrior, ect ect) I think talked about that enough. So I'll just laminate more on the fact that again unlike 3e you can play the game and not feel like you aren't gimping yourself by just using the core books. 4e will focus more on adventures with its supplements which almost guarantees that it will produce more adventurers that player supplements.

Uhm, if you were paying attention (which apparently you weren't) my post spread the blame equally between 3E and 4E as far as the whole "let's sell more books" thing. I also pointed out that I intend to playtest 4th Edition for myself when it arrives. So uh...kinda preaching to the choir?

Further, you have no idea what's really going to end up coming as far as supplements for 4th Edition (beyond perhaps titles and basic descriptions from WotC's press releases). Historically, "adventure" supplements don't sell nearly as well as "player" supplements....I doubt WotC is going to veer away from that formula too much. Secondly, if Star Wars: Saga Edition is any indication (and it was very clearly the test bed for many of the ideas found in 4.0), instead of getting endless "Prestige Classes" we'll now end up with endless "Talent branches" and/or individual talent addendums, as well as the inevitable "new feats" that'll crop up in almost every book. Same phenomenon, different flavor.

Honestly, you make it sound like WotC is just going to sell the main books and not even try to entice people to buy more, which we know is never going to happen. Bringing out the latest "hot new must-have supplement!" is pretty much how they keep their business afloat.

Lastly how many classes do you really need to combine to execute one concept. Be careful how you answer this because it can very much paint a bad picture about your play style. The line between dipping so as to achieve a character concept and the line between dipping for nothing more than power gains is kind of blurry.

Some people (even entire groups of people) enjoy powergaming, is that any less valid a play-style as any other? The answer to your question is entirely different depending on the campaign, the player(s), and the DM. You're trying to paint a picture of 3rd edition that's so skewed it's laughable, when in reality 90 percent of the flaws you're pointing out are quite easily avoided or solved with a smidgen of creativity and a bit of communication between DM and Player(s).

I'm sure 4th Edition is going to end up with more than its' fair share of problems, errors, and other "bugs" to work out. It's also going to introduce fundamentally different styles of play and what amounts to largely an all-new system. These aren't bad things in and of themselves, but you should really be able to recognize and accept that it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. 3.5 wasn't yours, obviously, but plenty of people did like it and enjoy it (and still do). Plus the folks that have shelled out hundreds (if not thousands) of hard-earned dollars on 3/3.5 edition material have every right to be unenthusiastic about or skeptical of the new system, particularly since WotC seems to have made "throw away your old books!" all but an advertising slogan for the new system. I tend to think that's a pretty crappy way to relate to the customers that have supported you for the past few years.

You don't need to "champion" the system to anyone...just enjoy it for yourself. Everyone else will take care of themselves.

[Kage Kisaragi]

What has been stated then Mr Smarty? Don't worry I'll show you.

You claim that I don't know what WotC is planning on releasing. See thats were your short sighted comes into play.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndlist&brand=dndcore&year=2008&tablesort=1

That would be what they are planning on releasing for the rest of the year. If you were half the open minded player you claim to be, you'd have remembered that WotC since practically the launch of their webservice have opt to give players the heads up on whats due in the current year. (I mean obviously its the easiest and fastest way to promote their products.)

Also on the subject on House Ruling.. Since that seems to be you're answer for everything. I take it you have a stance on how much time is put into Dungeons and Dragons both getting it ready and actually playing the game. Here's a little example of what I mean. I'm suppose be joining an old group again tomorrow but, because of other issues I'm gonna call out, however prior to making this decision I began work on a 15th lv character for this campaign. A campaign where the DM has indeed added a couple of house rules, like Level buy off from the Unearthed Arcana, Full uses of all 3.5 materials, and anything that was officially updated to 3.5 on the website. Now I consider myself quiet the character maker when it comes to the mechanics of the game, but do you know how much time it takes in putting something like that together? ... almost half the day, and thats not including buying armor and equipment that works for the character. Having to figure out how to make certain builds work, having to scour for various bits of armor so that you are capable of doing your indeed role right should not take half the day regardless of the level of play. Not only that Where does the dividing line appear between just Optimizing for successfully filling out the desired effect and Power Gaming for the sake of breaking whats already broken come into play?

You seem to think yourself of the answers but for everything you said the fact remains there was more than enough need for something to be done on a large enough scale that House Ruling wasn't going to cut it. How do you fix a flawed skill system that rewards you for sticking to only a small number of skills when the game offers challenges for a lot more. (Every skill in 3.5/3.0 that was on a classes list that you couldn't put ranks in because you ran out of skill points means that that is one more skill you can't use as a option for something else. Not necessarily to solve a problem, but for example to try and alternative method in finding out some in addition, or another possibility.)

How do you fix a multiclassing system that collapses if you multiclass 2 levels of practically every class and end up with a character who will never fail a save ever, and can still fight as well as a Rogue or Monk, and would have so many class features that he couldn't even fit them on 3 character sheets. Sure you can say you can't multiclass more than 2 classes but then isn't that exactly what 4e is doing according to you? Lets look at a example. Knight 2/Ranger 2/Hexblade 2/Duskblade 2/Paladin 2/Samurai 2/Swashbuckler 2/Fighter 2/Warblade 2/Crusader 2

Now I have BAB 20 my Fort: +24, Ref: +3, Will: +9, now compare it to a 20th lv Fighter same BAB, with F: +12, Ref +6, Will: +6. Out of these two examples which one would you rather have? I know I'd much rather have the first one, simply because not only do the class features I gained from all of those classes equal the bonus feats obtained by the fighrer but most of them out right beat the fighters options. Am I to house rule that only the PHB, DMG and Monster Manual are now usable and the only things that are usable? I don't think to many people would appreciate that but thats the only way I can possibly see the 90% of flaws that complained about not becoming a serious factor with the over all balance of 3.5, and even then its not like there weren't signature problems within that. I mean magic was just poorly done in 3e. Magic could attack all forms of defense while other forms of combat couldn't, and to make it even worse, magic could defend against all forms of combat period, yet other forms of combat couldn't defend against magic or only had one line of defense against magic. The system was lop sided, so please tell me how is someone to house rule that?

[Astonishing X-Fan]

3/3.5 is perfectly flexible for whatever you want to do with it. So what if people can powergame with it? Let them powergame. Some people enjoy it. Groups that aren't into powergaming won't do it, because the system doesn't force you to. You need to realize that not everyone is going to pick the "best build". Plenty of people just come up with a character concept and choose their class(es) based on that. 3rd edition can be used to powergame and to roleplay equally well.

Maybe it's not balanced. Maybe the druid is just plain better than the fighter. I don't care. As a DM, I contrust my ecounters keeping the player's abilities in mind. If one PC is more powerful than the other, I'll make sure the weaker PC gets a chance to shine in battle, too. Perfect balace has never been a big deal to me or my players.

And I don't see why having to pick and choose what skills you're good at is a bad thing. You can be REALLY, REALLY good at a couple things, or decent at a lot of things. I don't see the problem. The skill system has never caused problems in any game I've ever ran. Characters that can do everything well are boring. Specialization keep things interesting. And I think it's GREAT PCs can do essentially superhuman stuff at high levels. At that point, I want my PCs to feel like action heroes, doing impossible stunts and impressive feats.

And the whole "whoever has the latest book has the advantage" thing is trvial to me. Everyone shares books when I DM. Hell, 95% of the books are mine in the first place. But it's a very simple problem to fix: simply say if one person uses it, anyone in the group can. If the PC isn't willing to share, then he aint using the book either. I for one look forward to new supplements, new classes and prestige classes, new feats, new spells, and new mechanics. The more choices there are, the bigger outlet my players and I have for our creativity.

[Perry Holley]

An early review of the 4th ed rules (http://apresvie.livejournal.com/38836.html)

A review of Keep On The Shadowfell (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13791.phtml)

[Alex]

Maybe it's not balanced. Maybe the druid is just plain better than the fighter. .

JESUS IT IS WORLD OF WARCRAFT!!!!!

[Perry Holley]

Another review of 4E (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13813.phtml)

4E, the Wii, and casual gamers (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.frp.dnd/msg/0a891f5ccafcccf1)

[Astonishing X-Fan]

As much as I love 3/3.5, I did pick up the three core 4th edition books the other day.

Honestly guys, this looks like a lot of fun.

Combat looks like it's both better and faster. Everyone has cool stuff to do and no class should feel useless. The skill challenge system looks pretty awesome and fun for big non-combat encounters. there's still plenty of options, and there's nothing harming your abilites to do things outside of combat.

It really comes across to me as an improvement over the excellent foundation that 3rd edition built. I really think people should give it a chance.

[Celisasu]

I have also bought the core rulebooks for 4th Edition. I'm not done reading them yet(I'm about 60% of the way through the Players Handbook right now and I've done very brief skims of the remainder of it along with the DM guide and Monster Manual).

Very very initial impressions:

1. The classes seem to have a far higher level of balance between them. For the most part this seems to have been done by taking a middle ground in power levels compared to 3rd Edition. Caster classes seem noticably weaker than before while warrior classes seem stronger. The limited selection of powers you can know at a time(by level 30 everyone will have 17 powers that they picked plus the two or three starting powers of the class and in general one power granted by their race as well as a few paragon/epic destiny abilites) is a further method of controlling relative power levels.

2. Even moreso than 3rd Edition, D&D 4th Edition seems to be more about combat encounters than any other kind. I'm not stating this is a good or bad thing. Just noticing that there seems to be noticably more focus on combat where the classes are concerned. The non-combat powers almost feel like an afterthought really.

3. Skills are pointless. Being trained in a skill just means you have +5 when using that skill. So if you're RPing an uneducated warrior, you know almost as much about arcane theory as a wizard. This is definately an area where I feel that 4th Edition is a downgrade from 3rd(and 3rd had a terrible skill system setup already).

4. Certain builds probably won't be viable under 4th Edition rules even in expansion books. Due to the power level they've chosen for the game certain powers would just be too strong most likely. I don't see how they could make a minion master type class(the necromancer with the undead horde for example or the conjurer who had a whole mix of monsters fighting alongside him) for example without either gimping it so much that it wouldn't feel the same or having classes that are noticably stronger than the current ones. Most conjurations in 4th so far are of a very limited scale(generally being a spectral entity summoned by a cleric which are invincible and do one specific thing such as grant combat advantage or perform attacks of opportunity). The closest to a real minion is the soul summoned by a 12th level warlock chosing the infernal path and it has some strict conditions for summoning and it can only use basic melee attacks.

5. Combat encounters seem very much improved. It's very MMORPGish with mooks, elites, and leaders and whatnot but it works. Mooks pretty much always have 1 HP. You stab it. It dies. Well unless it dodges. It's strange seeing a high level lich with one HP due to it being a mook while the lower level lich is meant to be a boss encounter and thus has more HP. Combined with the improved way powers are handled in game and the way the classes work combat looks like it'll be very promising. As well as strength levels most critters have a role(solo encounter, leader, artillery, soldier, brute, etc) to dictate how they interact with the PCs and their allies.

6. The monster manual is pretty much all crunch and no fluff. You get two or three sentences that describe the critter(I'm serious. The chimera has all of two sentences devoted to it for example) and the stats. Pray the artist does a good job drawing each monster as some monsters that's the only way you get know what they look like.

7. Healing surges seem like they're the correct answer for the game to not need a healbot. Need to test some fights to see if theory works in practice though.

8. Choosing a race actually has meaning beyond "Which stat gives me a bonus to my class and a penalty to an unused trait?"


Overall I think the game is more focused than previous editions. If you play 4th Edition as a series of tactical encounters and don't mind a lower base power level it'll be a lot of fun. If you want some of the higher powered stuff from 3rd Edition or if you're interested in non-combat encounters 4th Edition probably won't be for you.

[God_of_Awesome]

Couldn't this be fixed by mix-and-matching things from 3.5 and 4?

[Astonishing X-Fan]

I don't see how skills are pointless at all. Between being trained, ability score bonuses, and feats, it's quite easy to be much better at a skill than a different party member. It's just now, it's not so harsh. Everyone can do everything at a basic, competant level...while some can do it at a trained, advanced level. But at the same time, you don't absolutely suck at something just because you didn't focus on it.

I like it. Characters can excell at skills without other party members being completely useless at the same thing.

And I think the skill challenge stuff could make for some great non-combat encounters.

[Celisasu]

It must be a taste thing because I personally feel that a warrior who's never studied magic in his life shouldn't be almost as knowledgeable about the subject as someone who's dedicated his whole life to the subject. And I don't see why I'd waste a feat taking skill focus for a +3 bonus when I can use a feat for more useful abilities such as two extra healing surges or increased accuracy or damage for my attacks. Personally I would've prefered a skill system where every skill was open to every class but you only have a certain number of skills(more than 3rd Edition had though). Everyone being competent at everything just doesn't appeal to me. And yes, it'd be easy to house rule, but I'm talking about the system as is assuming no house rules.

D&D 4th Edition has a lot of nice stuff for it, but I personally don't find how they handle skills to be one of those things.

Read a bit more of the players handbook while I was watching a movie. So far my favorite classes are the cleric and warlord. Which I guess also says something about my personal style of play as they're both described as "leader" classes who work by granting advantages to their allies and crippling their foes as opposed to directly killing stuff dead.

[Celisasu]

It must be a taste thing because I personally feel that a warrior who's never studied magic in his life shouldn't be almost as knowledgeable about the subject as someone who's dedicated his whole life to the subject. And I don't see why I'd waste a feat taking skill focus for a +3 bonus when I can use a feat for more useful abilities such as two extra healing surges or increased accuracy or damage for my attacks. Personally I would've prefered a skill system where every skill was open to every class but you only have a certain number of skills(more than 3rd Edition had though). Everyone being competent at everything just doesn't appeal to me. And yes, it'd be easy to house rule, but I'm talking about the system as is assuming no house rules.

D&D 4th Edition has a lot of nice stuff for it, but I personally don't find how they handle skills to be one of those things.

Read a bit more of the players handbook while I was watching a movie. So far my favorite classes are the cleric and warlord. Which I guess also says something about my personal style of play as they're both described as "leader" classes who work by granting advantages to their allies and crippling their foes as opposed to directly killing stuff dead.

[Jmacq1]

It must be a taste thing because I personally feel that a warrior who's never studied magic in his life shouldn't be almost as knowledgeable about the subject as someone who's dedicated his whole life to the subject. And I don't see why I'd waste a feat taking skill focus for a +3 bonus when I can use a feat for more useful abilities such as two extra healing surges or increased accuracy or damage for my attacks. Personally I would've prefered a skill system where every skill was open to every class but you only have a certain number of skills(more than 3rd Edition had though). Everyone being competent at everything just doesn't appeal to me. And yes, it'd be easy to house rule, but I'm talking about the system as is assuming no house rules.

D&D 4th Edition has a lot of nice stuff for it, but I personally don't find how they handle skills to be one of those things.

Well, I haven't read the books yet, but I've read the Star Wars Saga Edition which was the test-bed for a lot of the 4th Edition mechanics. The skill system is sounding familiar, and there -is- an explanation.

Think about it this way: If the skills are handled like the Star Wars Saga Edition (and it sounds like they mostly are) where everybody goes up in every skill as they gain levels, all it's doing is reflecting that broad, generalized experience that most adventurers are going to gain simply by virtue of being an adventurer. The fighter may not have any dedicated training in "magic lore" but as he adventures he'll pick things up (A "working knowledge" as it were). Unless you're in a magic-less campaign in which case yeah, some house-ruling may be necessary.

Basically, at first level a Fighter is likely to be useless in terms of "magic lore" since he hasn't trained it and the attribute its' linked to is probably not one of his highest. Meanwhile the wizard will likely have trained it, and possibly even focused in it (or will focus on it in the future) giving him not only a +5 - +10 bonus over the Fighter (which is significant), but also allowing the Wizard to use all the little uses of the skill that are "trained only" (assuming they carried that mechanic over from Star Wars Saga Edition, as well). In other words, the Wizard will be able to do a whole lot more with his "magic lore" skill, and do it better than the Fighter, unless it's like a 20th level fighter and a 1st level Wizard, but even then only the Wizard could still do the "trained only" uses of the skill.

Also, if they carried it over from SWSE, there are a few skills where all the uses of the skill are "trained only" making those characters trained in that skill more specialized still.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

But a Wizard who's trained in Arcana is still quite a bit better than an untrained Warrior. +5 is a pretty sizable bonus, not to mention it's pretty much guarenteed the Wizard is going to have a good ability score bonus, increasing the gap. The untrained Warrior is far from "almost as knowledgeable about magic". There's a large gap, probably at least +7 or +8, and that's if the wizard doesn't furthur specialize.

Not to mention the Wizard gets ritual casting for free, and gets lots of free rituals as he levels up.

Also, you have to be trained in Arcana in order to detect magic.

The Wizard is still the go-to person when it comes to Arcana. The only difference is the other classes won't be completely stupid when it comes to magic. I don't see the problem.

EDIT: here's an example. Let's say a party has encountered a shadow-type monster. There's a wizard with a 16 INT trained in Arcana, and a Fighter with a 10 INT not trained. The wizard gets a +8 bonus to Arcana checks and the fighter gets no bonus. In order to identify the basic information about the monster with Arcana, the wizard has to roll a 7 or higher. The fighter needs a 15 or higher, more than double what the wizard needs. To know what kinds of powers and attacks the monster can do, the wizard will need to roll a 12 or higher, while the fighter will need to roll a natural 20. And to know what the monster is resistant to and weak against, the wizard will need to roll a 17, and the fighter will not be able to do it at all. In fact, unless he finds a way to train arcana or raises his INT score, the fighter won't be able to do it until level 10, and even then he would need a natural 20.

That's a pretty big difference in ability. The fighter has to wait ten whole levels before he even has the slightest chance of figuring out what the monster is weak against. The wizard can do it at level one.

[Perry Holley]

http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/080609.html

[Jmacq1]

Well, I've managed to get through the PHB, though at times reading all those power entries was a bit of a chore. I'm not going to speak much as to the mechanics of the game as I've not playtested yet. I'm sure there are massively overpowered combos waiting to be discovered (or already discovered, as a post entitled "How to Kill Orcus in 10 Seconds" on the Wizards forums seems to indicate), and over time some flaws in the system will become apparent, get changed, or get invented as new material arrives. Things are vastly better balanced between classes now, though, and while in some ways things are more restrictive (Multiclassing is a whole different animal now), I think the end-result of making every class useful for the entire length and breadth of the game (as opposed to Fighters dominating in the early game, Wizards owning the late-game, and Clerics just standing around waiting to heal people) is worth the sacrifice. YMMV.

They've definitely changed the "flavor" of the default setting pretty significantly. Half-Elves aren't outcasts, but rather seen as "best of both worlds." Tieflings can walk around without getting shunned. Etc... In many ways it's a much more "high fantasy" setting, and that's both a good and bad thing. I think a lot of the "old school" players (myself somewhat included) might be having trouble adjusting to that mentality. In that regard, it really is much more like a MMORPG...Race just isn't really a "thing" here as people of all (PC) races run around all over the place. Of course, it's easy to adjust that to suit your own campaign, but as-written it's a much more diverse and open-minded setting. That can either be a good or bad thing.

There are a lot of other adjustments too...new deities (and the inclusion of some Forgotten Realms deities), the nature of monsters and magic, and an overall emphasis on good/heroic characters (Evil really gets short shrift in the PHB...I smell a future sourcebook for evil PCs in the works). There's a lot of underlying mythology, ecology, and cosmology being worked in here if you read between the lines a little bit. It's interesting, but it's definitely different. I'm curious to see how (or if) these things will be integrated into pre-existing campaign settings like Forgotten Realms and Eberron without massive retcons and outright re-writing the history and nature of those settings.

At first, many of these changes didn't sit well with me, as I viewed them as "change simply for the sake of change" but upon reading a few reviews and some posts on other forums, I came to the realization that while it is change for the sake of change, that was also one of the underlying purposes of this new edition. This isn't just an "update" to Dungeons and Dragons, in many ways it's a "reimagining." Don't think of it as "Star Trek" to "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but rather "70's Battlestar Galactica" to "00's Battlestar Galactica." Some of the trappings remain the same, and the fundamental premise is the same, but everything else is different.

I think that, more than anything, may be what older players are having a hard time getting into. This game is different. It's not just new bones (mechanics) under old clothes (setting and "feel"). Whether you choose to embrace those differences or not will largely determine how much you might enjoy this new system and setting. I think I remain "guardedly optimistic" as far as the potential of the game, though that may change (in either direction) with a few playtests. I also think that my gaming group and I will likely dust off the 3.5 edition books fairly frequently. Not because it's inherently superior, but because it's a completely different game with its' own reasons for being fun.

[DarkBlade]

Another flaw I felt existed in the writing was that there was no attempt, not even a weak one really, to reconcile the rules with reality, or even game reality. Things work as they do because the rules say that they do and that's pretty much it. As someone who values immersion while roleplaying I can't help but feel that this will detract from that experience, and that's not the only place it occurs. Throughout the game characters aren't really treated as characters so much as playing pieces, arrays of powers and abilities rather than personalities.

That concerns me, and would probably make any DM running a 4E game with me in it want to shoot me. I've been known to go study up on a subject because it's something my character knows and I don't want to just roll all of it or be spoon-fed.

... Which is not at all to say that Perry's campaigns involve spoon-fed information. By god he he makes you WORK for that stuff. I just like to be able to come up with insights my character would have sometimes instead of entirely on the random basis of "roll a dX." I'm also a bit notorious for "But that's not how it WORKS!" If it is working different because the creature has thicker skin or the spell is pulling one force here and putting it there or there is SOME sort of explanation, I'll buy it and shut up and cheerfully return to immersion. I like to have bits of day to day things. I'm also weird and LIKE the character creation process. But then, I started on 2nd ed AD&D. I don't mind figuring every item in my character's pack and like doing that too. What would my character be carrying around? Why? Is this stuff legal? If not, does it bother him/her? Is it hidden somewhere? How is my char keeping the glass stuff from being broken? etc.

The assumption that the item needed at the moment would be in my possession on account of the bag of holding or what have you annoys me. And if characters DON'T have those bags, at least a vauge idea of weight is important for dex based ACs. You're carrying 7,021 gold pieces? In regular bags? Seriously? And expect it to not show? And to sprint and fight easily? HA!

[macul]

I looked at going with D&D 4E, but instead I've decided to use this as a point to break away from D&D. We've played a variety of games, though we always seem to fall back on D&D. Instead of buying the new D&D books I purchased GURPS 4E instead. We've played that in the past and the only real complaint I had then was the magic system, which seems improved, so it is back to GURPS. So long, D&D.

[Perry Holley]

I've been reading through different comments and reviews of the 4E books, and while there are a few individual elements I wouldn't mind incorporating into play (the "second wind" rule, DEX bonuses only applying to unencumbered characters, magical rituals castable by non-spellcasters), for the most part there's not much there that grabs me and makes me want to drop some cash to pick up the new books... and I say this as someone who, with the exception of the 3.5 stuff, has copies of every version of D&D (including the original 3 small OD&D booklets).

[DungeonmasterJim]

- grumble grumble - still waiting for my books from Amazon...

Has anyone played any 4th ed games yet? I played a mini-intro mod at a gaming con a few months back. I was also wondering if anyone has noticed an early trends yet? Pretty much I'm thinking of stuff like when half-orcs could have a 20 str at 1st level there were a ton of half-orc barbarians at the beginning of Lving Greyhawk. That was a national campaign in case people were unaware of it. Living Realms will be debouting soon and I hope to play some at DragonCon this year.

DM Jim

[Astonishing X-Fan]

I`m hoping to start DMìng a 4th edition campaign in a couple weeks. I`m really looking forward to using the skill challenge system and the new combat system. It looks so FUN.

[AllisterH]

Well, I got the gift set and I have to admit, I really, like 4E.

I've been playing 1E and this edition looks like it actually remembers that it is a game and not a poor world simulator.

[Gezora]

No Half-Orcs, no Barbarian class....

Consider me extremely pissed.

http://www.akiba-online.com/forum/images/smilies/furious.gif

[Abrojo]

Loved some of the new concepts and stuff.

Still my biggest issue is that it will probably be impossible to adapt to play without miniatures and a grid map. 3.5 already had lots of stuff to use them, but was still usable without those. 4ed it looks impossible without breaking half the stuff.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

Grid map yes, miniatures no. You can use anything to portray things on the grid...coins, dice, candy(players get to eat what they kill!), etc.

And you can just draw a grid if you don't want to spend any money at all.

[Kage Kisaragi]

4e and skills.
Let's see.. Warrior who hasn't studied magic or cares about at it. Not only doesn't he have arcana on his class skill list but has no spellcasting what so ever to begin with. Whats the problem?

Warrior who doesn't care about using magic or learning magical lore, but has managed to fight magical beings and hang around wizards for 8+ levels can still roll a knowledge arcana check and if he makes a DC set by a DM can recall X level of knowledge based on what he has experienced, (because the dude has presumably been around the block once or twice and killed a Fey, Elemental or Shadow creature.) he can't detect magic, or identify rituals or magical effects.

Warrior who wants to know about magic but doesn't want to take away from his focus on the martial way, can expend a feat and become trained in Arcana. (Trained and gains a +5 bonus to the skill. Can now utilize certain uses for that skill that non trained individuals can't.) not only is he more knowledgeable than the previous two warriors, even the one who is 7 or 9 lvs higher when it comes to magic, but he can also detect magic, and identify magic rituals and on going magical effects. Yes just like the wizard since both of them apparently attended arcane knowledge 101 together back in grade school, however it was probably the wizard who went to grad school and picked up Skill Focus Arcana.

Hence 4e Skill System Greater than 3.5 since in comparison a Warrior who wanted to know anything about magic was told. NO you are Stupid Warrior, trying to read magic books and holding any knowledge their of will penalize you by eatting up your 2 skill points per lv and only giving you a net bonus of 1 for 2 with a cap equal to your level + 3 / 2 rounded down.... 3.5 skill system = epic fail.

[Kage Kisaragi]

No Half-Orcs, no Barbarian class....

Consider me extremely pissed.

http://www.akiba-online.com/forum/images/smilies/furious.gif

guess you never played 2ed either.

[Kage Kisaragi]

- grumble grumble - still waiting for my books from Amazon...

Has anyone played any 4th ed games yet? I played a mini-intro mod at a gaming con a few months back. I was also wondering if anyone has noticed an early trends yet? Pretty much I'm thinking of stuff like when half-orcs could have a 20 str at 1st level there were a ton of half-orc barbarians at the beginning of Lving Greyhawk. That was a national campaign in case people were unaware of it. Living Realms will be debouting soon and I hope to play some at DragonCon this year.

DM Jim

Yes I have, and we have a regularly planned game on saturday (hopefully), by the way notice that in the how to kill orcus in 10 seconds thread, it was refuted that you can't do this on the very 3rd post, Iike was mentioned in that thread, I'd hardly call a power that required you build your character in a certain way, and gain must have magic items and then roll 40 to 50 times or more with a constant roll of 15 or better to succeed broken. probability and statistics failed him. I haven't noticed any trends that are particularly favorful. The holy idea of roles is that you go into making a character knowing what you're going to be doing and not doing during combat. In that sense Fighter and Paladin only have minor differences in how they defend, and what minor role they can also play.. such as Paladin being a minor leader, and Fighter being a minor striker... but no, no particularly trends stand out more than the race, that is unless you mean do people match races to classes based on stats and potential racial feats.. then yes. Half Elves get +2 to con and cha therefore they make excellent Infernal Pact Warlocks, and things along that nature occur.

[GozertheGozarian]

guess you never played 2ed either.
Dragon magazine put out conversions for both fairly quickly after 2nd was released. Not as good as the originals, but workable.

[Jmacq1]

Yes I have, and we have a regularly planned game on saturday (hopefully), by the way notice that in the how to kill orcus in 10 seconds thread, it was refuted that you can't do this on the very 3rd post, Iike was mentioned in that thread, I'd hardly call a power that required you build your character in a certain way, and gain must have magic items and then roll 40 to 50 times or more with a constant roll of 15 or better to succeed broken. probability and statistics failed him.


If you bothered reading past the 3rd post of the "How to Kill Orcus in 10 Seconds" thread, you'd find that the probabilities didn't fail them in the least. The poster that was so certain that it had wasn't paying attention to the full abilities of the build. Basically he ends up with four or five chances to reroll, only needs to roll higher than a 1, and can make Orcus lose initiative at his whim. Making 40-50 "hits" in a row quite possible (though in many cases less than 40 are needed). In fact with the right build it worked out to about a 98.2% chance of finishing him off in one round. Yes, it's quite likely that a smart DM can find a way to head off the uber-combo, but the point is that they shouldn't have to. Any combination that's got that high a possibility of killing the most powerful creature yet presented in the game in one round is broken by any definition.

As for "requiring building a character in a certain way and having certain magic items, etc..." Gee, that sounds a whole lot like 3.5 edition to me. The basic point is that "powergaming" is just as possible in 4th Edition as it was in 3/3.5 Edition, and "broken" powers and abilities are just as likely to crop up, despite protestations to the contrary.

It's not really meant as a knock against the system. Some people -like- powergaming. But any game that has "hard" rules is eventually going to end up with combinations that are vastly more effective than others, and exploited by the players that enjoy finding them. 4th Edition isn't any more immune to that effect than any other game. And as books like "Martial Power" and "Player's Handbook 2" come out (gee, I thought all the supplements were going to be adventure-based?) it's only likely to get worse. 4th Edition is just as likely to fall victim to "power creep" as 3rd Edition was.

[Jared H.]

So powergaming and character optimization are possible in 4e?

I actually find that to be rather encouraging.

[Grazzt]

Grid map yes, miniatures no. You can use anything to portray things on the grid...coins, dice, candy(players get to eat what they kill!), etc.

And you can just draw a grid if you don't want to spend any money at all.

I'd just like to say, you sound like the most awesome DM ever.

[Kage Kisaragi]

Jmacq1

actually I read the whole post, and in fact I posted on it. I was one of the people who pointed out the claus of teleportation as movement which would provoke Orcus immediate reaction attack, secondly it wasn't one ability that broke the game (and it doesn't so much as break the game as it does allow one person to be really good against a solo monster, once per day.) You see unlike you I took all the factors into consideration before I jumped to a conclusion much, like the same people on that board. Cascade of Blades is usable once per day normally and I dont recall any of the abilities in that build refreshing it before a extended rest, nextly it also required 2 particular powers from a epic destiny to even make it viable, and 1 from a race if one decided to use it. Without the Trickers ability to call a DM's roll as a natural 1, once per day the build against Orcus would be dead in the water. The build is far from breaking 4e, and outside of a solo encounter it is still limited, that includes whether or not the person has companions.

[Jmacq1]

Nice work dodging the issue: Is the ability overpowered? Yes. Is it useful against far more than just Orcus? You betcha. Does it even require -all- those abilities to be overpoweringly effective against a wide variety of creatures? Nope.

Once again, you're dodging the basic point: All your claims that 4th Edition was somehow a move away from "powergaming" were so much blown smoke. Every system can be powergamed, 4th Edition is no more immune to it than any other system.

[spidervenom]

Hi, Im thinking of getting into dnd since I heard the 4th edition came out, and I was wondering if its worth it.

[The Zapper]

Hi, Im thinking of getting into dnd since I heard the 4th edition came out, and I was wondering if its worth it.

It's too early to tell (for me at least). I like somethings, but not others. I haven't even gotten to play a real game of it yet, but I don't like the miniture asspect.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

No Half-Orcs, no Barbarian class....

Consider me extremely pissed.

http://www.akiba-online.com/forum/images/smilies/furious.gif

Well, you can always just use the playable Orc from the MM and say he's got human blood in him. It always seemed like a redundant race to me.

I'm sad to see the Druid and Monk go, but the other three removals don't bother me much. The Barbarian and Sorc were pretty much just offshoots of the Fighter and Wizard, and the Bard was replaced with the much less lame Warlord. Still, any removal is sad to see, though if it makes you feel better, there ARE plans to bring back these classes eventually in the PH2.

In the plus side, while there's less classes overall, the ones we do have are very well-balanced with each other, far more than 3/3.5.

[macul]

So, I broke down and bought the PHB last night. I don't know if my group will ever do 4E, but I'm going to at least give it a read.

[Syzygy]

No need to fix what ain't broken.


I think I agree.

Getting rid of the Bard, the Druid, the Monk...won't last.

Who would even conceive of that?!?

Those classes have been around since 1st edition...I know cause that's when I started playing.

No Half-Orcs, no Barbarian class....

That too.

WORST. EDITION. EVER.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

I never played 1st edition, but I'm pretty sure that the monk, barb, and half-orc were certainly not part of 2nd edition core.

Each edition has had a different lineup of classes and races.

[lonewolf23k]

I know it's probably a minor nitpick for some, but the new five-point Alignment system just annoys me. I feel it was poorly designed, or at least poorly explained. It took me a while to realize that what the new game calls "Good" and "Evil" is just Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil, only they don't want to admit it.

In any case, since they've seperated Alignment from Mechanics (except for the Astral Weapon's "Astral Whirlwind" power), I see no reason why one can't just House Rule the Nine Alignments back in, or just dump Alignments altogether and instead use Allegiance mechanics from D20 Modern.

[Perry Holley]

I never played 1st edition, but I'm pretty sure that the monk, barb, and half-orc were certainly not part of 2nd edition core.The monk and half-orc weren't, but the bard was a core 2nd ed. class.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

The monk and half-orc weren't, but the bard was a core 2nd ed. class.

Yeah, by "barb" I was talking about the barbarian.

[Perry Holley]

Yeah, by "barb" I was talking about the barbarian.Ah, nevermind then!

I just assumed it was a typo. My bad.

[macul]

I ran a 4e game last night. It went OK considering there were three more players than I had planned for. I used an older 3.0 adventure from Dungeon (Siege of the Spider Eaters) with a few modifications.

I was concerned about how well the game would go for several reasons:

1. Lack of experience with 4e. No one in our group had played it and most had never even cracked open the books.
2. I had to convert monsters from 3.0.
3. More players than I expected.

So basically I wasn't sure how the adventure was going to scale. I didn't know if the combat encounters would be too easy or if the first would result in a complete party wipe. The game went well. Not exactly as the adventure layed out, but when do they ever?

I had about a few house rules going in to the game. The only ones we used last night (many of the rest don't matter until the PCs level) are:

1. Healing surges didn't work if you were bloodied (divine healing excepted).
2. Extended rests did not heal bloodied damage.

Observations:

1. Combat rounds went much quicker. The actual encounters didn't shorten, but the time it took to go from the first player to the last was fast. This really kept my players in the game.

2. The use of powers really seemed to keep the players interested as well.

3. Minions are nice. Really nice. I only used them for the first combat encounter (ship battle against pirates). The ability to throw lots of bad guys at the PCs without bogging down combat AND still posing a real threat was great. The most memorable was a dragonborn fighter using his breath weapon as a minor action to take out three pirate running across a boarding plank, he then rushed in to combat with his move, and took out two more with cleave...all in the same turn. On the next turn three pirate minions surrounded him and dropped him like a rock.

4. No one played a wizard or warlock. I think everyone was still gunshy of playing a first level magic user thanks to previous editions. Though I did have one player say he is going to ditch his fighter and roll up a wizard instead after he read over the class.

5. I kept messing up by having the players roll saves just like the older editions rather than me "attacking" their saves. I finally got the hang of it towards the end.

All in all the game was actually enjoyable. I had my reservations as did everyone else at the table. I even had a couple make snide references throughout the early part of the game and kept saying "this is just like WoW!" At one point they said that after the cleric used a spell to grant the entire party a bonus, cause D&D has NEVER had that before apparently (Bless and Protection from Evil anyone?).

[Astonishing X-Fan]

The "just like WoW" is such a dumb thing to say. I can't say I've ever had to wander around grinding in a D&D game.

[Perry Holley]

I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be a rush of third-party publishers signing up to produce product through the 4th ed GSL. Even more interesting is that Kenzer & Co. are publishing 4th ed. compatible products while bypassing the GSL altogether:

http://robertsongames.com/news/kenzer-co-dd-and-trademarks

[carabas]

I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be a rush of third-party publishers signing up to produce product through the 4th ed GSL.Not very surprising. If you're putting out a new game, and you want it to last a bit, the worst thing you could do is tie it to a game system that almost certainly will be replaced by D&D 5.0 in a few short years.

[Jmacq1]

Not very surprising. If you're putting out a new game, and you want it to last a bit, the worst thing you could do is tie it to a game system that almost certainly will be replaced by D&D 5.0 in a few short years.

Riiiiight.

What you've described is exactly how the RPG business doesn't work. The average RPG publisher that isn't named "White Wolf" or "Wizards of the Coast" tends to operate on a shoestring budget, with minimal staff and if they don't put out new product and try to make money now, they're going to go out of business. We had 3.X for what...8 or 9 years?

What makes you assume that 4.X isn't going to last nearly that long?

I suspect the real problem is that the 4.0 system is so vastly different that it requires a ground-up reworking of pretty much everything, mechanically speaking. I also suspect that its' emphasis on roles and the restrictions on multiclassing make it a whole heck of a lot harder to "adapt" other settings into the 4.0 ruleset. In many fantasy settings (and that's not even touching on the massive number of non-fantasy or alternative-fantasy settings that d20 got adapted into), not everyone fits quite so neatly into a defined role.

Plus with those shoestring budgets and small staffs, etc.... Yeah, it's gonna take a long time to rejigger those rules for the smaller publishers. Lastly I think there's still a licensing fee for D&D 4.0, at least for the next several months (though I think someone mentioned WotC might be doing away with it). A lot of publishers may just be waiting until they don't have to pay extra to publish.

So yeah, 4.0 may be rather "license unfriendly" in that regard. Which makes me wonder what those publishers are going to do...stick with 3.X? Pathfinder (is that even going to be licensable)? D20 Modern?

[Kage Kisaragi]

This Sunday, we started a new 4ed campaign.

I played a Elven Cleric multiclassed into Ranger, who heavily focused on Nature and archery. the character at first glance would never come across as a cleric to the untrained eye. She wore only leather armor, and carried a long bow (60 arrows) and a dagger as her primary weapon.
Her holy symbol was a belly chain that was worn under her leather armor. I seriously never had as much fun working with others in combat. Attacking from long range is a blessing in and of itself, so while the Paladin, Fighter and Wizard were pretty much standing in the thick of it, I was safely 10 squares away popping shots for 1d10+5 (and for one enemy per encounter and extra 1d6 with my quarry which I always announced by saying "Lock on!"). Every once in awhile I would buff someone who took a good chunck of damage with temp hit points or heal with healing word but for the majority I got to just fight without worry of being to have to heal bot the entire party. (of course you can do healing word as a minor action while still attacking but what I meant is since things like Sacred flame had a shorter range than my bow, I sometimes had to get savory close to combat.)

The DM is basically converting the Neverwinter Night's 2 PC game into a 4th edition campaign. So we got to do the high harvest fair, and I totally owned the Archery competition with a 8/10 score. (again, I'm a Cleric) Being a Elf has never be as awesome in my experience. The +2 dex and Wis really lent itself well to this concept, especially since Elves in this editions are more closely tied with the wild. The automatic proficiency with long and short bows means I got to save a feat and still use a very powerful weapon. The wild step ability hasn't come into play yet, but I would have to think that it will eventually, especially in heavily forested areas or places where the DM wants to increase the challenge. The +2 to perception was useful right away since I got perception as a skill after taking the Warrior of the Wild feat. Then the +2 to nature kicked in at 2nd lv after I took skill training nature also the speed of 7 for elves made fighting at range neat because I could then run almost 2 more squares further than most other people. I doubt I would have ever done anything like that in 3ed since it was pretty much impossible to do without certain prestige classes or multiclassing.. but I'm not knocking editions anymore. I learned that Every edition should be looked at as its own separate beast.

Combat in a more specific analysis was amazing. The Wizard especially, with his Thunderwave, he kept tossing the enemies around like rag dolls and killing off the minions rather quick/easily. The paladin did a outstanding job tanking and keep the enemies focused on him. This more so because of the players knowledge of knowing of to jump into the thick of things and making himself look like a easy target. lol however they found hitting him a little to hard since he had a 23 something AC. The fighter was a new player to D&D all together, he'd read the 3ed books before but never really played. He liked strategy RPG's but never got into cooperative rpg's like D&D so he was kind of green, and he was playing one of the most essential roles in 4e so he wasn't fairing all that well but he still managed to kill enemies quiet easily. We actually found out that the DM over powered the battles, expecting to be DMing for 6 players he went over board with the monsters but even still as a party of 4 we managed to win two encounters. The second one we didn't even rest before starting thus some members didn't have some of their encounter powers back.

We're only 2nd lv now soon to be 3rd I guess, so I haven't run into any problems. The DM is still new to 4ed and I'm not 100% sure he's doing treasure correctly. (is everyone supposed to be getting 2 level + 1 magic items because of winning a event?)

Though I haven't much need of them yet. I have took gentle repose (automatic) and Animal Messenger as my starting rituals, and Endure Elements is the one i bought at 2nd lv. I really do feel like the nature elf paragon type as oppose to say the cleric with the long bow.

I'm having a great time with this edition and I just wanted to share this particular incident with others to see what they think.

[Jmacq1]

Sounds like fun, but yeah, that's way, way too much on the treasure front. I don't know the exact "calculation" but if I recall correctly from the DMG when making "advanced" characters, they get one magic item equal to their level, one level +1, and one level -1 per level (except level 1, obviously). Definitely not per encounter. So basically the DMG is saying folks should average about 3 magic items per level (that's if I'm remembering the calculations correctly).

We've been running a 4-man group for a few sessions now, and we're all still feeling out the system a bit but combat is a heckuva lot of fun. We're just starting "Keep on the Shadowfell" (Our DM ran a couple mini-sessions to get us to level 2 to help compensate for being one man short). Unfortunately, our group is still kind of lacking, as encounters with lots of minions really make us work for it because we don't have a "controller" (Wizard) to clear out the hordes (We've got a Human Two-Handed Fighter (me), Eladrin Archery Ranger, Human Fey Pact Warlock, and Dwarven Battle Cleric. So we can deal horrendous damage to single targets, but not so good with the multiple opponents.

[Grazzt]

Sounds like fun, but yeah, that's way, way too much on the treasure front. I don't know the exact "calculation" but if I recall correctly from the DMG when making "advanced" characters, they get one magic item equal to their level, one level +1, and one level -1 per level (except level 1, obviously). Definitely not per encounter. So basically the DMG is saying folks should average about 3 magic items per level (that's if I'm remembering the calculations correctly).

In 3rd and 3.5, IIRC, it's not based on the number of items, but on the gold value of the items. So an advanced character would get, say 35000 gold, which would be mostly consumed by their magic items. Also, the DM was recommended to set a limit on any one item, to keep a character from blowing everything on an item that unbalances the game. Otherwise, it was up to the player if they wanted a couple of good magic items or a bunch of mediocre ones (relative to level, of course).

[Jmacq1]

In 3rd and 3.5, IIRC, it's not based on the number of items, but on the gold value of the items. So an advanced character would get, say 35000 gold, which would be mostly consumed by their magic items. Also, the DM was recommended to set a limit on any one item, to keep a character from blowing everything on an item that unbalances the game. Otherwise, it was up to the player if they wanted a couple of good magic items or a bunch of mediocre ones (relative to level, of course).

Yeah, it's done somewhat differently in 4.0, since magic items now have "levels" in a sense. It's also worth noting that the "3 items per level" calculation is really just there to make generating higher-level characters easier for DMs. In practice PCs will probably vary with that number.

[Kage Kisaragi]

Sounds like fun, but yeah, that's way, way too much on the treasure front. I don't know the exact "calculation" but if I recall correctly from the DMG when making "advanced" characters, they get one magic item equal to their level, one level +1, and one level -1 per level (except level 1, obviously). Definitely not per encounter. So basically the DMG is saying folks should average about 3 magic items per level (that's if I'm remembering the calculations correctly).

We've been running a 4-man group for a few sessions now, and we're all still feeling out the system a bit but combat is a heckuva lot of fun. We're just starting "Keep on the Shadowfell" (Our DM ran a couple mini-sessions to get us to level 2 to help compensate for being one man short). Unfortunately, our group is still kind of lacking, as encounters with lots of minions really make us work for it because we don't have a "controller" (Wizard) to clear out the hordes (We've got a Human Two-Handed Fighter (me), Eladrin Archery Ranger, Human Fey Pact Warlock, and Dwarven Battle Cleric. So we can deal horrendous damage to single targets, but not so good with the multiple opponents.

Well we weren't advanced characters. We all started at first but like in the PC game after you win the high harvest festival you go up a level. We won all 4 events, the knaves challenge, (hah there was quiet a story there. It involved me shooting a thief with a arrow and basically harassing him into helping us with this challenge since it was thievery heavy, don't feel to bad for him though, he was a notorious pervert who stole womens underwear and at the end I let him keep a pair. :wink:) the archery challenge which I mentioned, The harvest brawl, and the magic contest which or wizard barely won. So at the end we gained a level and I guess the DM could have fubbed what the treasure parcels from going from 1st to 2nd should be.

[Kage Kisaragi]

In 3rd and 3.5, IIRC, it's not based on the number of items, but on the gold value of the items. So an advanced character would get, say 35000 gold, which would be mostly consumed by their magic items. Also, the DM was recommended to set a limit on any one item, to keep a character from blowing everything on an item that unbalances the game. Otherwise, it was up to the player if they wanted a couple of good magic items or a bunch of mediocre ones (relative to level, of course).

It's still the same. When you make a advanced character. You gain a item with a value equal to your level +1, a item with a value equal to your level, and a item equal to your level -1, and a amount of gold equal to a item your level -1 that you can use to buy anything else. It's basically the same as 3.5 but instead of telling the DM you should limit how expensive a item your players can buy, it's spelled out for you by hard coding it into the system. This way no mistakes can be made and no DM having to look over your shoulder as you pick items. Of course you still should tell him what your buying.

[Grazzt]

Sorry, I didn't read that properly. My bad.

[Grazzt]

Also, quick question: you said that one magic item per encounter is a lot. How heavily are the reward tables weighted toward one use items like potions and scrolls? Is it easier to break magic weapons? Maybe they just expect you to go through magic items a lot faster.

[Kage Kisaragi]

Also, quick question: you said that one magic item per encounter is a lot. How heavily are the reward tables weighted toward one use items like potions and scrolls? Is it easier to break magic weapons? Maybe they just expect you to go through magic items a lot faster.

Are you asking me?

[Grazzt]

Are you asking me?

Anyone who has played fourth, really.

[macul]

I've always ignored how the DMG recommends handing out magic. Not just for D&D, but for any game system I've run. I hand out whatever I think is appropriate or sometimes letting the player go with luck of the roll.

[carabas]

Same here. Especially since following the D&D guidelines turns PCs into overpowered gadget junkies.
They'll take their Only Slightly Cursed +0.5 Potato Peelers and be damn happy with them.

Well, maybe not quite that bad...

[Kage Kisaragi]

It's not that bad Carabas, at least not in 4e, I don't remember what 3.5 said, though I do remember more often than not Pc's in 3.5 were under powered in terms of magic items compared to the starting gold piece values of new comers.

In 4e you only really need 3 magic items (your weapon, your armor and your defense boosting item.) .... everything else is just icing on the cake. :)

Um, I don't think I can answer your question Grazzt mostly because I'm not all that familiar with the DMG and treasure parcels but what I do remember is something like this and don't quote me on it, but it all depends on your current level. The parcels between levels are usually broken down into 10 parts to be spread out over 10 encounters or skills challenges or random searches, quest rewards, or major rewards or whatever other kind of point you create to give out items/money. So if you planned on only 7 battles before the party reached the next level, and that they were going to get 1 parcel per battle and then the king rewards them with the last 3 parcels then thats how its going to be, but as far as what the rewards are thats something you have to come up with based on the outline they give you in terms of whats an appropriate parcel package at your groups current level.

[carabas]

In 4e you only really need 3 magic items (your weapon, your armor and your defense boosting item.) .... everything else is just icing on the cake.Meh. I prefer my heroes to be heroic (well, heroic is maybe inaccurate. let's call it 'good at whatever it is they do') without the need for that stuff. If a regular steel sword and some used chainmail were good enough for Conan, then that's good enough for me.

[Kage Kisaragi]

Meh. I prefer my heroes to be heroic (well, heroic is maybe inaccurate. let's call it 'good at whatever it is they do') without the need for that stuff. If a regular steel sword and some used chainmail were good enough for Conan, then that's good enough for me.

Then why aren't you playing 4ed more? Because is definitely closer to Conan than 3.x was. I mean not to bash it, but if a Fighter didn't have a +5 weapon with x abilities on it, he could pretty much resign himself to the task of pack mule for all the good he was going to do. In 4E you ability to be a fighter is not described by your weapons or armor, they are just tools to be utilized to make you function in your roll a little easier. Yes like in 3E a +6 weapon adds +6 to hit and damage, but unlike 3E the Fighter already has distinct abilities to control the battlefield and do considerable damage. Hence the fighters powers. Same goes for the Wizard and any other spellcaster, their implements means it only adds to the ability to hit a high Defense more than not while adding only a minor bit to the damage.. Now in both cases should either individual crit with these weapons/implements. Then the weapon adds a lot more extra damage, but since critical hits are more rarer in this edition I can see why they wanted it to be more rewarding depending on how powerful a weapon/implement you are wielding.

For those who don't know a +6 weapon or implement in 4e that is used during a critical hit adds 1d6 per enhancement bonus on the weapon. Some weapons deal d10 on crits if the right enhancement is on it.

So If I wanted to play Conan, I'd sooner play 4E edition where I could just easily fight bare handed without feeling like I'm totally gimped and pull off Conan like stuff, like ripping out of gods horn, than in 3E where I specifically need a class for every nitch character type to ever exist and a +5 weapon with all types of abilities just to be considered viable for my level. In short Conan didn't seem to make a lot of wasted attacks, in fact it usually took him one good hit to take down a flunky.. this is more in line with 4E and the Fighters powers are what make the fighter not their weapons design build.

[Jmacq1]

There's only one problem with your reasoning, Kage.

I'm rather certain the creatures in the MM are scaled for a party that's packing magical items appropriate for their level. You'll need to tweak the AC, HP, and To-Hit Bonuses etc... of high level creatures by a couple/few points to balance it out, or chances are your party is going to get mauled.

Plus, quite frankly, if I want to play Conan, I'll play the actual Conan game which happens to be statted in 3rd edition.

[Kage Kisaragi]

There's only one problem with your reasoning, Kage.

I'm rather certain the creatures in the MM are scaled for a party that's packing magical items appropriate for their level. You'll need to tweak the AC, HP, and To-Hit Bonuses etc... of high level creatures by a couple/few points to balance it out, or chances are your party is going to get mauled.

Plus, quite frankly, if I want to play Conan, I'll play the actual Conan game which happens to be statted in 3rd edition.

yes but again with the difference of to hit being 6 points all that really means is that you have a lot less likely chance of hitting, but you will still hit more often than not simply because their are still powers that attack other defenses than AC which is generally the highest defense, not to mention some abilities give you bonuses to hit based on other abilities scores or a static x to hit, and lastly powers that still have effects even if you miss. So the monsters don't have to be scaled to any extreme just because the party isn't all packing +6 weapons. All it means it that combat will be drawn out longer but still totally possible of winning. This isn't the bash 3E thread, but I'm just pointing out that from what I've seen 4E is definitely giving you your cake and letting your eat it to.

[Perry Holley]

Green Ronin makes decision regarding 4th Edition (http://greenronin.com/2008/07/green_ronin_and_4e.php)

We do not, however, feel that this license treats third party publishers as valued partners. Under its terms WotC could frivolously sue a signatory for supposed violations of the GSL, lose the actual court case, and still ruin the winning company because the license specifies that the signatory has to pay WotC's legal fees. Also, the GSL can be changed at any time and WotC is not legally required to so much as inform its licensees.

[Kage Kisaragi]

Green Ronin makes decision regarding 4th Edition (http://greenronin.com/2008/07/green_ronin_and_4e.php)

That's tough for Green Ronin but I don't recall WotC forcing parties to design 4e material, in fact I think it was WotC intention that people don't simply because they didn't want anyone trying to make money off their creation/signature product. I really don't understand what the big hub bub is about. I mean they can still create 3.5 material if they want, or even make 3.75 material for pathfinder.

[Jmacq1]

I'm surprised they came out with a GSL at all, since I figured half the point of 4e was preventing competitors from raking in the bucks based on WotC's work.

But still, GR's explanation of the licensing contract makes it sound like it's a pretty messed-up deal for anyone that even wants to try to undertake it. Sounds like a nice bit of political maneuvering on WotC's part: They put out a contract/GSL that's unteneble to most people with half a brain, but since most players aren't going to bother digging into the legalese to realize that, when nobody signs on, WotC can just shrug and say, "Well, we tried, not -our- fault nobody wanted to jump on board." So they get to appear like they're being generous like they were with the OGL, even when they're not really.

Add to that the fact that WotC made 4th Edition a lot harder to design for than the d20 system, and it adds up to "WotC doesn't want many/any licensees this go round."

All in all, the GSL is far, far more restrictive than OGL ever was. It would be nigh-impossible for game developers to make entirely new settings, or to convert 4e into other settings, because they're basically not allowed to change rules, make new rules, or otherwise alter the 4e ruleset in any way within their products.

[Shellhead]

OGL was a mistake, from a business standpoint. Sure, WotC sold a lot of core books. But all the rest of their products were, in effect, competing with all of the OGL products from other companies. And all of the additional rules options offered by those company created too many niche markets withing the overall game line, reducing how much money any given company could make, especially WotC. It was a recipe for disaster. By controlling more directly the content for 4th edition, WotC is in a better position to maintain a profitable business model.

I personally have almost zero interest in 4th edition, but I'm pretty sick of all the pseudo-Tolkien obsession of D&D in general. At least the first edition adventures were pretty imaginative. But otherwise, D&D has always been too complex, and the theme is generally destroyed by the rules-intensive tabletalk at your average session. There are much better RPGs to play.

[Jmacq1]

Oh, I'm not denying it's a better business move on WotC's part. It'll be interesting to see if this will "collapse" the RPG market a bit, after it hyperinflated during the OGL/3.X period. Then again, I suppose those companies that only make adventure supplements will probably just continue to do so, as those are the easiest thing to do under the GSL.

Between the more restrictive GSL, the eventual demise (in practice if not in theory) of the OGL/3e stuff, and a weak economy we might be looking at a goodly number of the smaller developers going out of business before long.

[Grazzt]

OGL was a mistake, from a business standpoint. Sure, WotC sold a lot of core books. But all the rest of their products were, in effect, competing with all of the OGL products from other companies. And all of the additional rules options offered by those company created too many niche markets withing the overall game line, reducing how much money any given company could make, especially WotC. It was a recipe for disaster. By controlling more directly the content for 4th edition, WotC is in a better position to maintain a profitable business model.

What do you think of the idea that they introduced OGL just to increase the market, then introduce a new edition with tighter controls once the consumer base had been built a little by the diversification?

[Jmacq1]

What do you think of the idea that they introduced OGL just to increase the market, then introduce a new edition with tighter controls once the consumer base had been built a little by the diversification?

I think that may not have been the point from the beginning, but its' probably factored into WotC's decision making process. To put it bluntly, the RPG market was hurting pretty bad before 3rd edition came along. I'd say the OGL was just as much an attempt to "save" that as it was a long-term "devious" plot.

However it may well be that "diversification" that kind of hurts 4th Edition, as well....3rd Edition was adapted to a vast array of campaign settings and styles of play. Some of that new audience may have gotten introduced to D&D by playing say, Spycraft or Mutants and Masterminds or what have you. They might not have any interest in going to "vanilla" D&D even for a shiny new edition.

[Shellhead]

What do you think of the idea that they introduced OGL just to increase the market, then introduce a new edition with tighter controls once the consumer base had been built a little by the diversification?

I don't think WotC was thinking that far ahead. The whole 3.5 fiasco wasn't exactly a sign of careful planning by WotC.

[Perry Holley]

While on the topic of Kenzer and Green Ronin, I ran across an article regarding D&D's history with third-party publishers that might be relevant:

http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_/TTnT_209.phtml

[Jmacq1]

That certainly makes it easy to see why the GSL includes the clause for WotC's legal costs automatically being paid by the other party. Most other publishers (ie those that don't have Hasbro corporate muscle backing them up) simply aren't going to be able to afford to pay for a lawsuit under those terms.

However it'll be very curious to see if WotC/Hasbro tries to push this at all, given that it sounds like they're actually standing on somewhat shaky legal ground if they try to go after folks that are publishing "compatible" material without actually using the trademarks.

[DarkBlade]

I can't read the article atm because game sites are blocked at work, but I've heard something about the 3.0/3.5/d20 licenses expiring? Anyone know of anything to this?

[Perry Holley]

"Publishers thinking that anything *remotely* like the boom of the 3rd Edition days is going to happen with 4E should seriously rethink their plans." (http://gmskarka.livejournal.com/420336.html)

[Syzygy]

And this planned obselescence of game systems only a couple years old is completely planned, and completely intentional, to keep people buying essentially the same product over and over.

Now here's good advice that I should have taken!

The only good part is that I only paid $60 for all three 4.0 books rather than the full, retail $105.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

I want to play this so bad but I can't get a group together for the life of me.

[Kage Kisaragi]

I want to play this so bad but I can't get a group together for the life of me.

:frown: If you lived in New York City, I'd invite you to mine. Have you tried websites like meetup.com?

[Perry Holley]

WOTC to Revise D&D 4th Edition GSL and SRD (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20080811)

“We recognize the important role third party publishing support plays in the success of the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We have listened to the community and our valued colleagues and have taken their concerns and recommendations to heart. Our commitment to the health of the industry and hobby gaming lifestyle is reflected in the revisions to the Game System License.”

Of course, the devil is in the details...